Deep Kick
by Link Worshiper
Summary: When Duo decides that he needs to rediscover himself, Heero is there to follow him for as long as it takes. If only Duo would notice that Heero had been there for him for much longer than he ever realized. Heero-Duo
1. Chapter 1

**Title:_ Deep Kick_  
Author:** Link Worshiper  
**Pairing:** 1=2  
**Stuff:** language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), eventual lemon, experimental POV stuff  
**Disclaimer:** When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is _Luna_, by the Pumpkins.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

I wrote this in 2006, but I feel bad that my current WIP is taking me a bit longer than I'd hoped to churn out. So here's another freebie from the vault for all of you who are too lazy to go to my site, lol.

--

I think I stared for about thirty-eight, whole, entire seconds with my mouth hanging unattractively open when he answered the door. I guess I hadn't anticipated it - hadn't expected the bump in the routine. Not that this was really all that routine. I mean, it sort of was - me showing up at his apartment block to pick him up, that is - but that was just for work in the morning. We definitely weren't going to work this time. We probably weren't going to go to work ever again.

I guess the hair really shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did, then.

Somehow, I managed to push my jaws back together, but I think that was only so I could speak properly enough to ask about it. Not that I could really phrase myself decently anyway. "Heero, seriously, what the fuck...?" I stammered; "I mean, when did you...?" I raised a shaky finger to finish the question for me. Standard and I weren't exactly getting along tonight. I squinted at him like I was trying to make sense of his appearance, but it wasn't because I was having trouble seeing in the lousy glow of the electric light fixed beside his front door.

"Oh, this?" he wondered, tugging on a clump of his spiky fringe as if he wasn't aware of the change. It was now dyed a vibrant, golden-blond hue. "This morning," he answered, running a hand through the messy hair on top of his head, which was still the familiar, dark chocolate brown I was used to. He shrugged inconsequentially as if it wasn't that big of a deal. "I was bored."

"Heero, you don't just up and bleach your hair because you're bored," I said, taking a few steps back to lean on the guardrail behind me in an attempt to look casual. In typical Preventer fashion, the paint was chipped and rusty beneath my palms. Fucking government housing. "That's big!" I said with a wild gesture of one arm. "It won't ever look the same again, even if you try to get the old colour back, you know."

"We won't be the same, either," he replied, shrugging uncaringly again. I should have known he wouldn't have given a shit about my opinion if he didn't want to. But that was Heero Yuy for you - always marching to the beat of his own drum.

I clenched the guardrail tighter with one hand and reached behind me with the other to grab the tail of my braid so I could toy with it nervously. I had this bad habit of pulling hair out of the bottom chunk of it when I was thinking and it was so bad, I wondered why the hell I wasn't bald yet. Heero stood silently in his doorway, regarding me with arched eyebrows, which stood out like two bold swoops of dark brown on his forehead. I guess the blond bangs helped kind of accentuate them, which was nice. I always thought Heero's face was so expressive, though right now he seemed kind of amused with me. I imagined a bit of silver glinting against one of those strong eyebrows and found I was rather pleased with how it looked to my mind's eye.

The sound of him clearing his throat shore my thoughts clean. "Are you ready?" he asked. It was then that I noticed he already had a backpack hanging over one shoulder. It was a bit limp, like there was hardly more than the bare essentials inside. I don't know how he could do that. His clothes didn't look too prepared either: just a pair of jeans and a really baggy, red hoodie. One of his sneakers was untied.

As an answer to his question, I kicked the blue duffel bag sitting by my feet with one steel-toed boot, offering him a crooked grin. The duffel was a small one, but it was fatter than Heero's bag. I guess my idea of bare essentials was a little more robust than his. Not that it mattered. I had a feeling I'd be losing half this shit in a few days anyway.

"Are you sure?" he asked, venturing past the threshold of his door and pulling it closed behind him and letting it slam with a hollow, metallic bang. He still had one hand on the doorknob, but his focus was on me. He nodded at something on my person, but it took me a while to figure out what he meant.

"Aw, come on. It's the only good one I got," I bemoaned, tugging at the navy lapel of my Preventers jacket. "For all anyone knows, I picked it up in a thrift shop."

"That's not the point," said Heero shaking his little. The rustle the motion gave his hair drew my attention to those wild bangs of his again. I still couldn't quite get over that. "I thought you were serious when you said 'cut and run'."

I stared at him, his blond hair and his ramshackle attire. He kind of looked like a grown-up version of the fifteen-year-old terrorist I met back then - still had those same glistening eyes that seemed to yearn for something more. Whatever it was that Heero Yuy would long after was anyone's guess, though. Maybe it had something to do with the way his huge clothes still seemed to swallow him whole or how his Preventers uniform used to cling to him so tightly. The realization didn't come sweetly, either.

I startled when I noticed he was standing next to me, leaning with his forearms on the guardrail as he looked out over the darkened colony block with an indescribable light in his eyes. I turned to face the same direction as him, but my attention was more drawn to the peaceful, yet resolute expression riding his features. The soft breeze from the circulation systems rustled his thick hair, his profile illuminated by the street light fixed to the telephone pole nearby.

"You should ask yourself why you're going," he said at length, arching his neck and straining his gaze up towards the colony's gently curving walls overhead. An observation window cut the harsh metal, offering a glimpse of the starry fields beyond.

I bent over the railing and draped myself over it, my braid dangling precariously over the edge. I could feel the weight of the plaited hair stroking my cheek. "Why are you?" I countered smoothly, staring past my spread fingers at the pair of dumpsters positioned by the stairs leading up to Heero's storey.

He remained still, but he glanced at me as if I should already know the answer. I wasn't sure I got it, but I knew if Heero wanted to be frank with me, he'd do it when he was good and ready. I know this escapade had been my brainchild, but it felt like he was the passion driving it. It was enough to push me, too. Made me remember what I'd been thinking in the first place when I'd said I'd wanted something new.

I straightened up a little, assuming a position similar to his. "We weren't meant to stay like this, were we," I commented, my eyes still downcast and watching the way the end of my braid circle lazily about, its weighted end like an anchor for my memories. "We're restless - heavy with a blues we can't shake." I lifted a hand and folded it under my cheek, leaning my face against my palm.

Out of my peripheral, I could sense Heero moving, shifting on his feet and readjusting the position of his arms. It reiterated what I just said - illustrated how impatient he was to get going, to be moving again. He really wasn't so different from me, even though so many people seemed to think we lived on totally opposite planets. Really, I couldn't ask for anyone who'd understand me better. There were some things I didn't even have to bother trying to explain to him because he already knew.

"I just want to find it - that deep kick, like when we were young," I went on, not realizing how stupid I probably sounded to him. "This isn't it - not here." Without thinking, I shucked off my jacket and folded it over arm, peering over the railing at the dumpsters down below and then glancing back at the jacket. I'd been through a lot with this thing, and sometimes it felt like a sort of comfort blanket - and other times, like a ball and chain. For nostalgia's sake, I stared at it a bit longer, and then finally gave it a little toss, watching it plummet down into the refuse, where it landed with hardly a sound. All the while, I thought how the weather simulation that night really wasn't so bad after all.

"Alright," I said, smacking my hands together like I was wiping them clean; "I think I'm ready now." I turned to face him as I spoke but found my speech slowing when I looked at him.

He stood there, still silent, one hand holding the rail and the other extended towards me, his pocket knife lying genially in his upturned palm. He didn't have to say anything; his solemn face already told me what he was silently entreating me to do. Instinctively, I reeled in my braid and started madly tearing at the end of it as I fretted over the mere suggestion. My uncertainty must have been more than evident, because he closed his fingers around the metal handle and retracted it a bit before reaching out again and grabbing one of my hands, forcing it away from my hair. He pressed the instrument into my hand and folded my fingers around it, an unspoken offer to choose for myself. Then, leaving me with the knife in hand, he readjusted his bag on his shoulder and turned like he meant to leave.

"Hey, wait!" I called after him, taking a few steps in his direction. The knife hung in my limp fingers. "I thought you wanted to do this together."

He stopped and faced me again, one hand gripping his backpack strap tightly, an indication of his tenseness right then. "I do," he said softly, his lips hardly moving as he spoke. "It's why I want to do it at all. I want what you want - to go where you go. To share a new beginning with you."

My mouth opened to reply, but no words came out. I was still running my empty hand up and down the lumpy ridges of my braid as if touching it would make the memories woven there more tangible. My hair had been there from the beginning; every inch was a different stage of my life. It wasn't exactly as easy to toss away as a uniform.

Heero shrugged, raking his fingers through his bangs like he was trying to pull them longer. "It's just hair, Duo - not your heart," he said, tucking a blond shock of his own behind one of his ears. The bleach made a stark contrast against his natural hair colour.

My loose fingers tightened around the handle of Heero's pocketknife, creeping into a position to flick the blade out of its hiding place. The light by Heero's front door glinted eerily against the tempered steel as I offered the knife back to Heero with a wordless offer of my own. That understanding I'd been talking about before sizzled through my entire being as he reached to take the knife from me, his fingertips brushing mine as he pried it free. I had an urge to squint my eyes closed as I presented my braid to him, but I found the dark far less comforting than the unmatchable blue of his concentrated stare. He flicked his gaze away only as he lifted the knife up, holding the blunt end against my cheek as he began to shear the hair stretched between my two hands apart. I liked the feel of his steady breath on my chin. I wallowed in its calming warmth.

He made fast work of it, and to be honest, it didn't even feel as traumatic or unnaturally agonizing as I'd expected it to when twenty years of uncut hair suddenly fell limp in my one hand. "It looks good," he said moments later as he folded the knife and squirreled it back into whatever pocket he kept it in.

I stared down at the braid that now lay detached in one fist, trying to decide if I felt the same. Still standing by the rail, I chanced a look down at the dumpsters again, immediately picking up the vibrant blue and tan of my Preventers jacket amongst the trash bags, and then glanced back at the long rope of hair. He was right, though - as usual. It was just hair; wasn't like I stopped being the person I always was just because it wasn't attached to the back of my head anymore. We had decided to start over - to grow up again... and this time, to do it right. My eyes darted back to the dumpsters again, and, with those things in mind, I abandoned my braid - my pride and joy, my tears and pain - to rot along with the jacket. It hit the side of the metal container with a loud thump that made me wince, but only in the most satisfying way.

"It feels good," I finally said, giving my head an experimental shake. I felt unbridled. Now much lighter, my hair settled raggedly around my face in a shaggy mess that barely dusted my shoulders. Bound by nothing, I could live my life simply as it was.

I could live.

--

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: _Deep Kick_  
Author:** Link Worshiper  
**Pairing:** 1=2  
**Stuff:** language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), lemony, experimental POV stuff  
**Disclaimer:** When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

--

It started when we were kids - free spirits, but already tormented by our own hands. I was young when we first met, and I probably could have measured my real life experience in a thimble, but I could hear that fire crackling within him right away, even if I was still wet behind the ears. He had a purpose - a direction for himself.

And what was I? Just a useless nobody, who, for all the specialized training in the world, couldn't even get through one mission without fucking up. He'd always say I was hard on myself when we got to talking about it, but I think he was just trying to be friendly. If friendliness was even something we understood back then.

Maybe it was just something we didn't realize we had at the time. He seemed to genuinely like spending time with me when we were hiding out together, something I think counted for a lot since a lot of people seemed to think I was somewhat unapproachable. I remember how he used to sit next to me in class when we were posing as students - how odd I thought that was. I'm not sure I've made sense of it even now, but then again, who knew why Duo Maxwell did a lot of the things he did.

But it was during those months we got to impersonate normalcy that Duo made his most impressionable stamp on the memory of my youth. I don't know what it was, but I enjoyed the consistency of his presence - liked the way he made me feel. For all his gregariousness, there definitely was something subtle and unspoken about Duo's character that I found rather soothing and I clung to it desperately. I'm not sure there are words to describe it, but I definitely remember the moments that touched me most about those times - a loose string of images that reminded me I never had to be alone again. Orange and red and gold: those were the sad colours I always pictured our youth in. They were the colours of the sunset that soaked our solitary afternoons together, the colours of his hair - of our memories.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" I'd asked him once. We were alone in some empty classroom in the boarding school by the sea. I think I was gruffer than I meant to be when I phrased myself, but then, I'd often found myself distracted by unpleasant things.

As usual, even though we weren't in a particular class or anything, he was situated in the desk next to mine, bent over the desktop and vandalizing the smooth wood with the tip of his pen. "You mean somewhere other than right here?" he'd responded, not looking up from his handiwork. He was dutifully carving the word '_shantih_' into the lacquered surface. The mandarin sky filling the window that framed his face set him in a warm, familiar glow. I wonder if the carving is still there. I liked to think it was.

I'd been so used to people always having some kind of motivation behind their actions, it was very hard for me to accept that maybe he didn't have any. "You're wasting your time with me," I'd told him in as frank a tone as I could.

He'd just shrugged, still gorging into the desk with that pen of his. "I don't think so," he'd replied casually.

I stared at the side of his face for a long time, wondering why my missions always seemed to be his own, before returning my eyes to the chalkboard in front of me, where I'd outlined the specs for our next attack. We were supposed to be briefing ourselves, but the numbers and diagrams I'd etched on the black slate seemed a blur to my eyes, though, a smear of white streaks that were scattered like snow flurries across the board. "There's no need for both of us to take the risk," I'd said idly.

"There's really no need for _either_ of us to take the risk," Duo had countered, pausing in his whittling to brush the thin coat of sawdust that had accumulated over his carving. Some of it still got stuck in the grooves of the letters, though, and I remember the way he'd bent low over each one, blowing softly through rounded lips to purge them. "We both know it'll only be so long before the Alliance finally gets their act together and puts the kibosh on our little terrorist romps," he went on. "Then just watch life for us spacers hit negative numbers."

"You don't really think that," I'd accused him tightly. At that point, we'd never really gotten into the hows or whys of our purposes there, but I refused to believe that his was so trite. To fight needlessly, to shed unnecessary blood - that just wasn't in his character. Even I understood that in those days.

"Look," he'd said, holding up a pair of fingers and brandishing them to me, "most guys call this a V for victory, but I take the comic book route and call it a V for vendetta. I'm not in this to win or nothin'; I just got a little score to settle with the jackasses who ruined my childhood. Call it selfish or petty or whatever the hell you want, but there it is." His words had come out bitterly and I could tell mentioning it out loud ground his nerves a little. His movements were a bit jerkier as he took to blocking out the letters in the desk more boldly before starting on a second carving of the word.

I took to staring at him again, taking note of his garishly long hair and the way his long bangs hung over his face, sometimes shadowing his eyes in the pale lighting. "At least you have a reason to fight," I'd murmured, speaking more to myself than to him. Me? I did it because I had to - because I had nothing else. I couldn't go back without a satisfying mission report; the guy who recruited J to train me wouldn't be pleased and I probably would've gotten beaten for it. Again.

I guess he'd heard me anyway, because he slapped his pen down against the desk with a jolt of passionate gusto as he snapped, "Don't undermine me, Yuy! Maybe you're into blowing shit up for fits and giggles, but my reasons are my own and you don't got a right in heaven to try and pigeonhole any of it, okay?" He snatched up the pen and rammed it forcefully down the length of one letter, gouging the wood far deeper than before. "Not everything is so simple as one neat, little number," he'd groused under his breath as he did so.

Silently, I agreed; the complexities of it weren't something I was going to even pretend I understood. Still, I really admired that drive of his. He didn't do things because he was obligated to or because he felt moved by a sense of duty, but rather acted because his emotions compelled him to. A long time ago, I once wished I could have a purpose like that. Then, I think part of me still did. I wanted that passion in my life - that sense that what I was doing meant something to somebody. I'd wished I'd known how to express all that to him, but it was something I wasn't sure I could explain properly, even now. Another failed mission, it would seem. Instead, I found myself saying lamely, "I don't think you're just a number."

That earned me a startled glance. He was looking at me as if I was a stranger who'd just walked in on him unexpectedly, but it was a stranger he didn't seem to be afraid of. His eyes softened and his brow became more relaxed, his rigid lips turning up into the faintest hint of a smile. "I knew you were sweet," he said with the strangest, most ambiguous gleam in his eye - a comment that, to this day, I still haven't deciphered. "I knew it right away, right from the moment I caught that sad look in your eye the first time I saw you try to blow yourself up." He scooted back in his chair, reaching between his legs to lift it and turn it more in my direction. "That's when I realized I wanted to know you better - that I wanted to be your friend."

I'd been so confused then, unsure of what to think or feel. No one had ever said something like that to me before, and the concept was alien. "Because of my eyes?" I'd queried, stumbling idiotically over the words.

He said nothing and returned to his carving, which, by this point, had just become a tedious distraction to keep his idle hands busy; he had begun to score the word into the wood a third time. I could see the faint tracings of a smirk on his lips. There was that subtle, unspoken thing again - the thing that warmed me with comfort when he shared a little scrap of it with me. I think that's why I was willing to trust him, even before I really knew all that much about him. Another indescribable moment of my life, I suppose, but I felt like with Duo near, the impossible was possible. I don't know why I felt like that. Maybe it was because I'd never had much of anything before - much less a friend.

I suppose it was those thoughts that drove me to say what I did next. "Do you really see no future after all of this?" I'd asked curiously, thinking again about our previous conversation. "Aren't we supposed to forge a new world with Operation M?"

Again, he paused in his carving, lifting his hands to stare at them as if he'd never seen them before. "With these?" He blinked ponderously at them, shaking them a little as if to test that they were really attached to his arms. "I can't create a damn thing with these," he'd continued with a twang of sarcasm. "All I do is fuck shit up."

I looked down at my hands too, shaking them in a similar manner to the way he had. "Me too," I murmured, recalling my first mission and what a disaster it had been. "Maybe you're right."

I turned my head towards him to find him regarding me with that strange glimmer in his eye again. "I don't know; I could be wrong, too. I've been wrong lots before," he'd drawled thoughtfully, his gaze pinning mine meaningfully. It was like he was seeing something on my face that I obviously couldn't. I recall trying to subversively find whatever it was in my reflection, which was mirrored in the window glass behind his head, but saw only my sad eyes blinking back. I really was a mess, I thought; I couldn't imagine why J ever thought I was ready for this.

"I just have a feeling about you, is all," he'd gone on, capturing my attention again. He was still watching me, now leaning casually on one hand, his elbow propped up on his desk. "There's something good about you - something that runs deep." He had that damn, ambiguous expression riding his features again. "You don't falter," he'd declared like he knew better than I did. "I like it."

Warmth toasted my cheeks as my shoulders drooped a little, overcome with the feeling that I'd do nothing but disappoint him. "That's only because I haven't got anything in my life worth stumbling over," I'd assured him with a grave shake of my head. "I'm only trying to survive. That's hardly what you're talking about."

He seemed unperturbed by my words, waving them off with a casual flick of one hand. "Who isn't?" he'd said, shrugging. "Nah, I can tell there's more to you than just that. Like I told you, it's in your eyes."

That had me furrowing my brow in confusion as I tried to make sense of what he'd said. "What is it that you're so sure you see there?" I'd demanded to know, now feeling a bit frustrated that I didn't understand what he was alluding to.

"Myself," he'd replied casually, almost as if it was obvious. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

I ran a hand through my hair nervously, feeling self-conscious for some reason. "They're just blue," I'd protested meekly, still trying to figure out what he thought made me... special. "They're not that extraordinary."

I won't ever forget the way Duo perked at that, like an indignant feline. "They're unforgettable," he'd breathed, sounding almost awed by the weight of his admission. "Just like you are." That last bit had been whispered so softly, I'm still not sure if I'd heard him wrong or not. I hadn't really been used to the idea of someone actually giving a damn about me, I guess. I'd never realized the value of a friend before.

"I'm not sure I comprehend," I'd admitted, balling my hands in my lap and staring down at them. I suppose I was still afraid to accept his sincerity at face value. After growing up under the care of a man like J, and then meeting that Darlian girl, I just wasn't used to the concept that people didn't always want something out of you when they associated with you.

"You're not just an everyday on the block," Duo had responded wryly, still smirking at me like he knew something I didn't. "You'll pick it up... eventually."

I unfurled my hands and stared down at them as they lay on top of my thighs, naturally curling upwards like shallow bowls. These hands that had touched and ruined so many things - did he really think that they'd be able to do any good? I looked up at him, my lips parted in an unspoken question. My eyes seared with uncertainty.

Duo's lips tweaked up into his knowing smile again. "You really are sweet," he'd said again, sounding almost as if he enjoyed inflicting such confusion upon me. He leaned forward, inching his chair closer to mine as if he meant to impart a great secret to me. I remember the heat of his breath as he brought his lips conspiratorially close to my ear, even though there was no one around to hear him anyway, and said, "That's what sets you apart, you know."

Something then brushed the palms of my hands and I'd quickly realized that he was stroking them in a comforting manner. Of their own accord, they'd bent around his, holding them in place and reveling in the clammy touch of his palms. I thought about all the terrible things J had molded into my hands and hardly believed that those same appendages were capable of such serenity. It was then that I was struck with a mind-altering epiphany, and I knew then that though I may not have chosen my hands, they were still mine to do what I would with. My future belonged to no one but me.

--

I had to sit down, I was laughing so hard. Fortunately, we happened to just be passing by a little caf area, where I collapsed into one of the metal chairs to regain my composure. "Oh, God, Heero, that was awesome," I bellyached, throwing myself over the tabletop and sobbing out more helpless chuckles. "Did you see the looks on their faces?"

"I did," he assented. I heard the scrape of the chair against the floor as he sat down opposite me. "I somehow don't think they found it quite as funny as you did." He was warily glancing around the terminal as if he was worried one of the people from the film crew we'd just toppled would pop up suddenly. We hadn't meant to, really; that's what they get for filming a movie in the middle of England's most crowded airport. I just hope we didn't break anything too bad, like a camera lens or something.

It had been almost three weeks since that night in front of Heero's L1 apartment, the place where we'd started our quest for what I'd come to call the deep kick - you know, that something that really gets your juices flowing, makes getting up in the morning worth it and all. Preventers duty hadn't been hacking it, and both of us knew it had only been a countdown to when we'd both get fed up enough to just leave. Which was what we did. Granted, there were probably less abrupt ways to have gone about it, but it had gotten to a point where neither of us could stand it long enough to even go through the formal resignation process. We had to get out, and we had to get out fast. So when I mentioned to Heero I was hopping a shuttle to earth that night, he was quick to get on board with me. We didn't worry about them trying to find us; we both knew how to drop off the map if we felt so inclined.

"Do you think they're pissed?" I wondered, folding my arms on the table and leaning heavily on them. Heero's eyes were still darting around the terminal in a way that acutely reminded me of the guarded way he used to act during the wars. I guess some habits really do die hard, as they say.

Heero stopped his surveillance abruptly and glared at me sharply. He didn't have to clarify who 'they' were. "Are you joking?" he asked, brushing his fingers through his blond bangs, which had since settled down to a more muted golden tone. The colour faded under the black pair of shades cushioned in Heero's thick hair. "Une has probably enlisted a group of agents to seek us out and string us up, while Noin and Wufei are taking turns throwing darts at our photos on the wall." He leaned casually back in his chair, weaving his fingers together across his stomach comfortably. "So yes, I think they might be. In fact," he went on, "'pissed' might not even be a strong enough word to cover just what's going on up there. I would venture to say they're _livid_, on a murderous rampage, seeing red -"

"Okay, okay, enough with the theatrics; I get it," I said, waving him off with a back and forth swipe of my hand, though I was still chuckling a little. "So we basically fucked them over. Big deal."

Heero shrugged in response. "They'll give up eventually," he said in a trivial tone. "Two AWOL agents aren't worth that much manpower, and even Une knows that if we don't want her to find us, she won't."

I was nodding, my mouth hanging open stupidly as I twisted a finger around one shaggy lock of hair. I wore it back in a half ponytail nowadays, kind of like the surfers I'd seen in the movies. "It's this, isn't it?" I said, referring to the changes in our appearance. I have to admit, there were times I sort of missed the braid - times I forgot it wasn't there anymore - but truth be told, I was kind of getting used to it. It kind of felt like I'd been caged up in one room all my life and had finally been let out, but had no idea where to run with my new liberation. I'm glad that Heero had been the one to free me of my old burdens. Really, I'm not sure I would have trusted anyone else to do it - even myself. I probably wouldn't have even known how, anyway.

Heero looked smug, arching an eyebrow as he moved to cross his arms, resettling in the chair a bit. "Well, it's probably not helping them out, that's for sure," he said with another noncommittal toss of his shoulders. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and chewed it for a moment, a habit of Heero's I thought was particularly demonstrative of how young at heart he still was. Then he leaned forward onto the table, reaching towards me with a tentative set of fingers. "I still think it looks good," he stated as his fingers neared my face, straining to brush some of my wayward hair out of my eyes.

I recoiled a little, mostly because I hadn't expected him to try and touch me like that. I felt bad when I saw him quickly retract his hand, almost as if I'd breathed fire on it. "You're probably glad it's gone," I said a bit morosely, hoping I hadn't upset him or anything.

Heero straightened, looking rather indignant. "No!" he said in an insisting tone, his head swiveling back and forth adamantly. "I lov-" He quickly cut himself off and clammed up, much to my frustration. A vain part of me kind of wanted to know what Heero Yuy thought about my appearance. I mean, before.

When he didn't say anything else on the matter though, I let it slide with a loud huff and moved on. Like I said, if Heero wanted me to know, he'd be frank with me when he was good and ready. I respected him enough to allow him that space. "But you have to admit it's been rockin' since we blew that popsicle stand, you know?" I said with a lopsided grin. "It's been really fun just wandering around like this...."

"With you," Heero added, his own way of showing that he completely agreed. He got a little cross-eyed after he spoke, though, quick to amend himself as if he didn't think I'd understand his meaning. "That is to say, I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it alone," he stammered in a rare show of unsteadiness. "And I'm glad you're the one I ended up going with. It wouldn't have been the same any other way."

I stared across the table at him with a sort of spooked expression on my face, not quite sure what to make of that. "What else are best friends for?" I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

The sigh he let out was sodden with a lot of things I couldn't name, so I didn't try to think about it too hard. He sat back in his chair, twiddling his bangs and staring off at something behind my head. I twisted around in my seat to see what was so interesting but found only the constant stream of travelers milling around the terminal - nothing special. Maybe I just couldn't see what he saw.

My search was cut off with a question from Heero. "When's our flight?" he wanted to know.

I turned around again, blinking incredulously at him. "In a half hour or so, Gate A-12," I told him, although I wasn't entirely convinced that he didn't already know that. I think he was just trying to make idle chitchat, probably more for his own benefit than mine. He'd probably been thinking about something he'd rather not and was in need of the distraction. Luckily, distraction was what I did best. Leaning heavily on one hand, I blew out a loud breath of air and said thoughtfully, "You know, I've been thinking...."

That caught his attention, and his heavy expression immediately became more bemused. "Really, now," he responded, sounding indulgent. "A dangerous pastime."

"No, seriously," I insisted, getting a bit more animated at what I wanted to say. It actually was something that had been sitting at the back of my mind for a little bit, but ever since this adventure with Heero had gotten underway, it had grown from a nagging whim to a strong desire. "I've been thinking I want a tattoo," I finally let out in a gust of excitement, a large grin spread out from ear to ear. "Right back here, between my shoulder blades," I continued, ignoring the way his mouth fell open in surprise and winding around in my seat so I could indicate where I meant with a pointed finger. "Something to commemorate us busting out of Club Boring and getting onto the train to Purpose - something that'll make me think of you and the time we've spent together."

His face went through a gradual transformation over the course of my rather unexpected admission. I think he'd been preparing to rebut me with some comment about how he thought a tattoo was another frivolous, superficial thing like my hair had once been, but I think that last part threw him for a bit of a loop, because what he ended up saying was, "Something that reminds you of _me_?"

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded enthusiastically, his reactions whooshing by me in a blur as I got more excited. Talking out loud about the tattoo was a whole lot different from just thinking about it and I just couldn't help but be enthused. "Because you're my wingman on this one, just like in the old days with the Gundams. You got my back and I got yours." My hand was cutting the space between us, back and forth to gesture to us both, again and again.

"You don't feel like that right now, do you?" he asked, his brow flexed as if he was trying to decide if he liked the idea or not. "You said we were young and hopeless back then."

"Youth is completely wasted on the young," I shrugged, not about to deny that. "Still, at least then, I felt like I was trying to find meaning for myself, too," I pointed out, lifting a finger and wagging it somewhere near my temple. "I got up every day and felt like I had something to prove - something to make me better than I was the day before. Couldn't quite say the same until a few weeks ago."

He was staring at me oddly, overtaken with this strange, unreadable expression that was completely unique to him. "Because of me," he reiterated flatly, a disbelieving hint to his tone.

I cocked my head at him, a little put off by his reluctance to believe what I said. Whenever I got like this about him, he always acted like he didn't understand why I'd feel that way, like he didn't deserve it or some such nonsense. "Yeah, you," I said with an easy roll of my shoulders, still peering at him sideways. "You're my best friend and I can't tell you how lucky and proud and honoured I am to be able to say that. Some people go their whole lives and never get a best friend and here, I've got the smartest, most talented, passionate guy to ever hop a colony as mine." I grabbed the edge of the little table and bent in close, leaning over it so my forehead was just short of rubbing up against his bangs. "My life wouldn't be worth getting up for if I had never met you, Mr. Heero Yuy."

With my proximity, I could hear the flutter of his breath as it quivered through his parted lips. I leaned back to see Heero staring back at me with wet eyes, his long, unruly bangs not doing much to hide the swell of emotion there. I don't know why he got so chocked up over that; I mean, it's not like he doesn't already know how important he is to me. Bunching my smile on one side of my face, I breached the gap between us again with one extended arm, lifting one soft tuft of blond hair out of his eyes and smoothing it over the dark brown locks that fell over the top of his head in a shaggy mess. He seemed like a shaking kitten beneath my hand and I had this urge to scratch him behind the ear to comfort him. "I can only hope I've been as good a friend to you as you've been to me," I said, hoping my sincerity shone through as I slid my hand through his hair and let his bangs flop back over his face.

His eyelids looked heavy, his lips parted like he was on the brink of saying a thousand things he didn't have the words for. I found myself wondering what sorts of things left Heero Yuy tongue-tied - if they were things he would ever talk to me about if he knew how to say them. He closed his eyes and pursed his lips, meditating for a bit, probably in an effort to regain his usual composure. And in typical Heero form, the words that came out of his mouth next didn't fail to throw me for a loop. "If you do end up getting that tattoo, then maybe I'll get one too. So I can always keep you nearby as well," he said, his lips slowly spreading into that familiar smirk of his. It was a childishly mischievous shape, but I liked the way it became his features.

A wide grin split my lips again. I really had to stop being surprised when he said things like that. That wildcard facet of Heero's character was part of what I really liked about him. "Yeah? You don't think it'll make us stand out too much?" I teased, nudging him under the table with one foot. I could feel him shifting his legs awkwardly to avoid any further shenanigans.

"We already do. Might as well go for the kill," he said, referring to my clothes with a nod. I was wearing a white shirt with horizontal, black stripes, but the front had since been splattered with red paint since I'd picked it up in San Fran. The black jeans I was wearing had worn a huge hole in one knee, and though I still had the steel-toed boots I'd started out with, all the walking we've been doing was starting to wear those suckers a bit thin too. Heero wasn't in much better condition.

I shook my head incredulously at him. "Sometimes, man, even I can't make sense of you," I replied to his enquiring stare. I balanced my chin on the heel of my hand again, leaning my elbow on one arm of my chair. "You know, you don't have to do it just to make me feel better," I assured him after a moment or two of just watching him. I didn't want him to feel like he had to get a tattoo just to appease me. "Don't think I'm forcing you or anything, is all I'm saying. Tattoos are a bit more permanent than a dye job, you know."

Heero rolled his eyes hopelessly. "You know I'd never agree to something if I didn't have the intention to follow through," he reminded me - not that I really needed a reminder. He reached over his shoulder to point between his shoulder blades, saying, "You've got my back and I've got yours, remember? We're in this together."

I eyed him thoughtfully for a few moments, just mulling over the weight of what he'd just said, all the while knowing that his words were the answer to my previous curiosity about his value of our friendship. Then, a deep laugh shook my body like a roll of thunder and I cracked one of my biggest grins at him, saying, "I guess we always were, weren't we?"

I found him staring back at me with that same, ambiguous expression of his, like he could see right down to the very core of my soul when he looked into my eyes. The dark blue of his irises was rich, molten like the blue at the heart of a flame, and I could feel that heat touching me just with a simple look. I wondered if he was aware that the comfort of that warmth was what gave me the confidence to press on with this wild escapade of ours. He probably didn't; it was just his way to be blissfully unaware of some things, I suppose.

His lips were moving, but I wasn't sure if I'd missed something he'd said. "I'll stay with you until the end," came the sound of his purring, deep voice. "That's why I'm here at all." He toyed with his hair again, the nervous habit especially endearing to me because I did the same thing. "I know this is important to you. I want to be by your side while you try to find whatever it is that gives your life meaning." He hesitated for a few seconds, dropping his intensely blue stare down to his lap, his fingers still twiddling a lock of bleached hair between them. "Maybe, if I'm patient, I'll be able to finally grasp that, too."

My ears perked up at that, and I suddenly reached across the table to grab his hands in my own as I shook them to and fro with excitement. "Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!" I enthused, bobbing my head up and down, my hair fluffing around my face as I did so. "That's why we've gotta go wherever we can and do everything we can do 'til we can laugh in the face of mortality and not even care because life is just _that_ good! We'll find it, bro - you and me, 'til death do we part!"

He let me jerk his hands around, but there was a smile alighting his face. "Yeah," he murmured so softly, he almost didn't speak it at all. His fingers clamped around mine, stilling my erratic movements with a grip that was so tight, I thought he wanted to hold on to me forever. "You and me, to the end."

--

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:_ Deep Kick_  
Author:** Link Worshiper  
**Pairing:** 1=2  
**Stuff:** language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), lemony, experimental POV stuff  
**Disclaimer:** When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is _Luna,_ by the Pumpkins.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

--

When he'd asked me why I'd done it, I realized I was too timid to ever admit the whole truth of it, and probably always would be. It was after I'd infiltrated Barge with a pistol, a silencer and every intention to shut Duo Maxwell up forever, but I guess there are some things that not even I'm strong enough to get over. The question probably should have been expected, considering what I'd done, but not even I had anticipated the course of my actions, thus leaving me without a stock answer I'd rehearsed beforehand. But once I'd been met with it, it unleashed the floodgates for a lot of things I hadn't taken the time to really ponder before and I wasn't quite sure where it left me.

Just why the hell had I let him live, anyway?

With the momentary circumstances and all the political unrest at the time, things probably would have been simpler if I'd left Duo lying in that prison cell with a bullet between his eyes instead of sitting beside me in the copilot's chair of the shuttle I'd commandeered to escape. No matter how I tried to reason it out, I kept coming back to the conclusion that maybe I'd allowed myself to get too friendly with Duo in those months we'd spent together. He didn't particularly remind me of anyone, like Relena did, with those shining, young eyes that looked so much like those of that girl with the dog. Instead, Duo's eyes had been dead and accepting of his fate when he'd been faced with the barrel of my gun, not entreating me for anything but eternal peace. I wasn't sure what it meant if Death was ready to die.

The shuttle had been on autopilot for the past twenty hours and Duo had since fallen asleep beside me since he'd initially asked the question, probably tired of waiting for me to puzzle out a decent answer for him. His dirty cheeks had started to regain their natural rosyness since we'd been en route, colouring a bit of life back into his face. Still, his hair was matted and tangled and he was going to have to stay off that one leg if it was ever going to heal properly. One of his arms was busted, too. His shoulders rose and feel with each tired breath he let out, a low snore escaping him every now and then, but I didn't mind; I liked the reminder he was still alive.

It was then that I realized how selfish I'd been, even if I'd seemed benevolent by breaking him out of imprisonment instead of shooting him. For the sake of the greater good, I should have just stuck with my original plan to off him; Duo had proven himself to be a detriment to the cause, and keeping him around was really more of a risk than an asset, even considering the useful skills the American did possess. But, despite all my careful designs, I hadn't been prepared for the heaviness I'd felt at the thought of stealing my best friend away from myself. And then I wondered if that was really so bad to want that for myself.

I turned to watch his sleeping face again, and for the first time, I hadn't felt guilty for my decision. It was an emancipating sensation. Slowly. I was beginning to understand that motivation for fighting - why so many were willing to die for this cause. I'd tried to imagine a future without the people I'd come to consider my friends and realized that one that didn't include them wasn't worth spilling blood for, anyway. I remember reaching across the space between us with a tentative finger, overcome with the urge to touch Duo's face. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that it wasn't a dream that he was beside me again. Maybe I'd just been too chicken-shit to admit the things I felt about him were unique to the relationship I shared with him.

My fingertips had grazed his cheek, daring to push a loose strand of his long, long hair away from his face, but no more. I'd quickly recoiled after that, distracting myself with superficial trivialities like the bloodstained turtleneck I was still wearing, or the grime streaking my own face. I sent him one last, longing glance and then unbuckled myself, allowing the antigravity to lift me out of my seat. It's still a mystery to me how he could sleep in zero grav; the weightlessness, even if I was strapped down, always made me feel restless and queasy. I guess he just didn't get as airsick as I did.

I guided myself out of the cockpit, using the back of the pilot's chair as leverage to propel myself forward. I grabbed onto the handle by the door to hold myself steady as I pressed the button to activate it and then passed into the cramped cargo bay to the aft of the ship. There had been a tiny closet of a room back there for a small crew to take up residence on longer flights, but there really wasn't much more space in there than there was in the cockpit. I went rooting through the lockers in there anyway, relieved when I found a fresh pair of leggings, another shirt and an unopened package of socks. I kicked off my boots and left them floating in my wake as I hurried to strip myself of those soiled garments, which were ripe with the scent of blood and smoke. A particularly scarlet-soaked section of my sleeve clung to a clotting wound on my bicep; I winced and hissed in pain as I peeled the cloth out of it. There was a burn on one of my thighs that made it particularly hard to get my old pants off and begged for a salve of antiseptic. Naked except for a pair of boxers, I floated back over to the lockers, this time in search of a first aid kit to dress my wounds. I remember desperately wishing the ship's sparse bathroom had been equipped with a real shower, even if it wasn't practical for a transport like this one.

After I'd tended to my medical needs and redressed, I tucked the first aid kit under one arm and made my way back to the cockpit with the intention of checking up on Duo, knowing it was very likely that he was probably at least just as battered as I had been. The irony of the situation was not lost on me, either, but I'd been past caring by that point.

I reentered the cockpit to find Duo still dozing in the copilot's chair. He'd probably been disgustingly tired after his whole ordeal and I didn't blame him for wanting to sleep. It had seemed like he was having nice dreams, anyway, and just because I could never hope to have a sleep like that didn't mean I had to begrudge him the same thing. I left the first aid kit to float by his chair as I guided myself to his side so I could give him a quick physical assessment. I hummed a little to myself as I worked, desperate to fill up the empty sound of the air circulating through the ventilation systems. I usually didn't even realize when I was doing it.

I was halfway through with my task when I found myself met with a pair of sleepy, ocean blue eyes, which were speckled with the depths of the stars outside our shuttle. I remember thinking I'd never seen eyes so round and blue as I stared incoherently at his curious face. "He'ro?" he yawned, slowly waking up more with each passing second. "What're y'doin'?"

I'd been more focused on the way my fingertips seemed to burn even when they were only touching the black fabric of his clerical shirt. "Can you... tell me where you hurt?" I finally garnered the brainpower to ask, hovering over his lap.

Understanding budded in those bright blue eyes and he answered with a low moan, "Everywhere."

I moved to grasp the arms of his chair, keeping my gaze level with his even as my lower half started to drift upwards a bit. "Where does it hurt the most, then?"

He moaned again and used his better arm to gesture to his ribcage. "Hurts to breathe," he wheezed, the stilted nature of his words illustrating his discomfort far better than what he'd actually said.

Hoping his ribs weren't cracked but preparing for the worst, I then said, "Is it okay if I help you out of your shirt? So I can check?" I don't know what was so embarrassing about asking such a necessary question or why I felt the need to clarify my intentions. Maybe, because I didn't trust them myself, I assumed he shouldn't either.

He assented with a slow nod of his head, reaching to fumble with the seat harness to better accommodate himself. I stopped him as soon as I realized what he was trying to do, assuring him that I could take care of it for him. "You just relax - try not to strain yourself," I told him, taking note of the way he grit his teeth when I touched his shoulder. It seemed to pain him a lot to be held in place that way, so I let go and lowered myself into his lap instead, wedging my knees in the space between his thighs and the chair's armrests as I started to unfasten the little buttons of his shirt. Parting the black cotton, I found his torso horribly bruised, a sight that had caused a fist of rage to tighten around my chest. I glanced up at him, the worried disbelief in my eyes expressing my question more eloquently than my words could.

"It's not important," he said around a strained smile. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay," I said, completely accepting of his decision. He didn't have to explicitly tell me what happened on Barge for me to know that it had been abusive and violent. The thought of OZ treating a prisoner with such disrespect, even if he was a hated criminal in their eyes, made me feel even worse than my airsickness did.

"Heero?"

My fingers froze over his ribcage, which I was carefully checking for fractures. For a second, I'd thought I'd made him uncomfortable with my explorative fingers, and then, I'd worried that I'd hurt him even more with a careless touch. I could feel his harsh breathing against my forehead, ghosting through my messy bangs to warm my flesh. Upon looking up from my task, it was only then that it realized just how close we were, our noses almost touching, our bodies almost complete crushed together in the tiny space. I was startled by the urge to turn my head and show him just how close our lips were, kind of like a movie poster I'd seen recently, but I didn't.

I guess he took my silent gaze as answer enough and went on with whatever he wanted my attention for. "Were you humming a little while ago?" he asked. His chest heaved with the strain of speaking beneath my hands.

My mouth opened in surprise, but no sound came out. There was a smile on his face, and I thought maybe he was going to make some joking comment about it to ease the heaviness in the air. At least, that's what I'd normally have expected him to do.

"You were, weren't you," he pressed, still smiling at me. My eyes were trained solely on his moving lips, like they were the only things I could see, and I thought about the movie poster some more. The smile grew heavy at the corners, becoming a bit more desperate in shape; "Please, tell me you were - that I wasn't just imagining it."

Bashfully, I'd nodded, unsure as to why I was hesitant to own up to it. I pointedly went back to checking his ribs for any injuries, dropping my eyes from his. I hadn't even really noticed that I had it until he'd brought it up.

He didn't try and recapture my visual attention when he spoke again, but I could feel his eyes on me, which was enough to make my fingers jerk to an abrupt stillness again. His baritone voice was soft around the edges, like shape whose edges tapered off into nothingness. "What was that song?" he wanted to know. I couldn't tell if he was jabbering on for his benefit or mine - or for anyone's at all.

"I don't know," I'd answered quietly, trying hard to will my fingers back into motion again. I was frustrated to find them stupid with the heat of his skin against their tips. "I think someone used to sing it to me once. Maybe it was my mother - if I ever had a mother. Or Odin. Or maybe I just heard it on the radio once." I leaned my head forward, daring to press my forehead against his shoulder, my voice a bit hoarse for some reason. "I can't remember anymore."

"Oh."

My entire body tensed when he lifted his good arm and settled his hand against the back of my skull, pressing me closer into the crook of his neck. I could smell the sweat and blood and the smoky residue clinging to his body like it had been worked into his very flesh. It mingled with that darker, kind of musky scent I usually associated with him - like the smell of the berth on the Sweepers ship.

"Do you think you could... hum it again?" His voice was hardly a tremor beneath my hands, which were still lying loosely against his bare torso. "It was nice."

I tried to protest, sure my face was aflame with redness. "I don't really remember how it goes."

"Then make it up," he said, shifting into a more comfortable position beneath me. "I just want to hear your voice." He was silent for a few moments more, and then, taking a cue from my continued silence, added, "I... I missed you, Heero. I was sure I'd probably never see you again after that mess with blowing Wing up and all. I'm really glad you're not dead."

"Me too," I found myself admitting, my eyes a bit wide with surprise, not exactly sure what my answer referred to. I hadn't expected to see Duo on the vid screen in that newscast about his capture, but more and more, I was starting to wonder if my impulsive plan to go up there and kill him hadn't been a ruse even at its inception. Maybe it was just an excuse to see him again. I vaguely wondered if my reaction would have been the same if it had been one of the other pilots on that screen.

My hand twitched against his torso, and I suddenly remembered why we were sitting like this at all. Reluctantly, I forced myself back into a more upright position so I could return to my former task of checking his ribs. My brows furrowed in concentration over my nose as I carefully applied pressure to each rib, gauging his reaction with each touch. I didn't realize I'd started to hum again until I heard Duo let out a contented purr, ragged as it was from his pained breathing. He closed his eyes again, and I moved on to check his lame arm.

_ "What moon songs  
Do you sing your baby?  
What sunshine do you bring?"_

Somewhere along the way, the words of the song started to fit back in with the tune, though the voice that recalled them in my head was frustratingly ambiguous, leaving me no clues as to where I'd heard it before. Before I knew it, the lyrics were starting to become more littered amid my warbled humming.

_ "Who belongs?  
Who decides who's crazy?  
Who rights wrongs where others cling?"_

It wasn't long before I realized that Duo had fallen back asleep. More or less assessing that he would need some heavy duty bandaging, I pushed away from the copilot's chair, leaving him to slumber on quietly. I grabbed the back of the chair and swung around to its side, crouching on the outside of one armrest so I could reach over his body and at least fasten the lap harness so he wouldn't float away. His mostly unbuttoned clerical shirt, though still fastened around his neck and hanging from his arms, hovered around his bruised torso like a thin storm cloud in the zero grav; his hair snaked unnaturally towards the overhead console, twisting like a tail that was chasing itself 'round and 'round. I held myself beside him for a bit longer, folding my arms against the chair and leaning against them as I looked up at his tired face and wondering what made him so much more than just a friend to me.

I really wished I could remember more about that lullaby, if only so I could tell him more about it. I hadn't thought he'd trusted me enough to let me ease him back to sleep. What kind of strange camaraderie had we really formed here? It was nothing like the one I'd come to share with Trowa or Quatre. For some reason, I couldn't quite call Duo a brother like the other two; there was something about the description that seemed inappropriate and altogether lacking.

I gave up trying to understand, knowing it was something out of my league. I pushed off the armrest, drifting towards the aft end of the cockpit to seek out the storage compartment near the door. Finding it, I pulled the door open in search of a blanket. The brown, woolen cloth that I found wasn't quite what I'd been hoping for, but it would suffice. I ferried the blanket back to the copilot's chair and carefully whipped it around Duo's comatose form. I drifted around him tucking the loose corners of it beneath him and hoping it would keep his unpleasant shiver away. I finished the job by coiling his drifting braid and wedging it behind his neck as a sort of makeshift pillow.

_ "I'll sing for you,  
If you want me to.  
I'll give to you...."_

More of the song returned to me as I clutched the back of the chair, still content to watch him just breathe. I became acutely aware of my proximity to him as he shifted in his sleep, rolling his head in my direction and blowing soft puffs of air onto my face through his parted lips. Even though his lips were awfully chapped and caked with tiny flecks of blood, I thought again of that movie poster, wondering if this was the sort of thing that played out in the film - if that ever actually happened in real life. Wasn't that sort of touching that people shared with someone special? J had explained this kind of thing to me in rather gratuitous detail, but I was only just now beginning to think that his teaching hadn't been nearly thorough enough. And his lessons never made me think of things like that movie poster or that I'd maybe, one day, want something like it for myself.

I decided this was something that required more exclusive thought, and I launched myself into the air again with another push off Duo's chair. I let myself drift on my back, my hands folded over my stomach as I stared up through the observation window fixed into the ceiling just behind the overhead console. Usually the wide expanse of space reminded me that my problems were trite and insignificant, but this time, I found the endless stars making me feel hopeless, like there wasn't a single person out there who could help me to understand. Except for one, that is, but he was currently fast asleep.

_ "And it's a chance I'll have to take.  
And it's a chance I'll have to break."_

I tried to hum some more, hoping to find the same comfort in it that Duo did, but it was to no avail. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't, feeling terribly queasy, though not really so much because of my airsickness. My body was in pain, but the burn on my leg and the wound on my arm were hardly the cause of it. I tried to ask myself where I hurt the most and didn't know what to do when I realized it was my heart.

--

The rattle of the chain link fence shaking beneath our hands and feet was loud in my ears as we scrambled up it, and yet, all I could think about was that damn tongue piercing of Heero's. The image of him toying with the knobbed end of the metal bar between his wet lips really wasn't the best thing to be distracted by with a brigade of coppers on your tail, to be perfectly honest. Not for the first time since he'd gotten it a few weeks ago, I cursed feeding his impulsiveness at the tattoo parlour; the damn thing kept coming to mind at the most inappropriate moments. Actually, all of the piercings Heero had collected since then had been prominent thoughts lately, and probably not for the reasons they should have been.

I suppose I should backtrack a little - back to that tattoo parlour in Kyoto, probably. It was the start of this series of edgy, adrenaline-pumped risks we found ourselves involved with more and more lately. Surprisingly, Heero was the one who suggested we go in, reminding me of that discussion we'd had about it while we were still in England. I think he'd taken to the idea more than he letting on - a suspicion that was proven when I found him lying beside me, getting a tattoo of his own etched into his back. They were even similar designs: a burning phoenix for me and a coal black raven for him.

It was hours of painstaking work, but he didn't flinch once. I figured he wouldn't, but I had to let myself ramble every now and again to distract myself from the needle. I guess I ended up mentioning how I thought he'd look good with an eyebrow ring, and I knew he was lost the second I saw that certain glow set in his dark blue eyes.

"Maybe I'll start out with one that's a little less prominent," he'd said thoughtfully.

"You could get one in your ear," I'd said, not even really thinking about what I was encouraging. "That'd look good, too."

"Maybe," he'd hummed. The plush tip of his tongue darted out between his lips, licking the bottom one, which seemed to spur his next comment. "I could get one there, couldn't I?"

Leave it to Heero Yuy to make even the simplest questions ambiguous. I arched a perplexed eyebrow at him, demanding a bit more information. I suppose he just assumed that everyone was privy to whatever illogical thought patterns his brain followed simply because they made perfect sense to him.

"Tongues," he clarified. "They do that, don't they?"

"They do," I answered slowly, noting the way that determined light in his eyes intensified. Relena's eyes did the same thing when she latched onto something, and I can assure you, it's a bit nerve-wracking sometimes. Suddenly unsure if this was the sort of thing I should be coaxing Heero into doing, I lifted my head and addressed the woman working on Heero's back: "Do you?"

She smirked a little, pausing for a moment so she could chuckle a little. "Sure we do," she'd said, clearly not aware of my thoughts on the matter.

"It'll hurt _a lot_," I emphasized futilely. That argument wasn't really much of a deterrent for a guy like Heero.

"It's worth it," Heero's tattoo artist replied. "It makes kissing better." I noticed the bit of metal dotting her own tongue as she spoke.

"Does it really?" Heero perked up. I was surprised that her second comment was what seemed to clinch the prospect for him. I hadn't even been aware that Heero had an interest in kissing anybody - or kissing at all, for that matter. "Duo, is that true?"

Caught off guard, I found myself stumbling over an answer. "Well, in my experience, I guess...."

"So you think it's attractive?" Heero pressed. I swear he was taking mental notes or something.

Heero's tattoo artist looked like she was going to voice an opinion of her own, but I cut her off before she got the chance. "When did you plan on kissing someone, Heero?" I asked, my tone a bit sharper than I'd intended it to be. I didn't care if I sounded kind of jealous; I just didn't want Heero getting involved in something without thinking about the repercussions.

"I don't know," he'd said inconsequentially, which led me to wonder what the hell he meant by that. "But I've always wanted to try."

That was pretty much that. Nothing I could say was going to get him to change his mind, either, though I couldn't help but feel that his decision had been sealed by something I'd said - not that I had any clue as to what that might have been at any rate. Later, when we left, I was reading a pamphlet about how to care for our new body art while Heero busied himself with experimentally rolling his tongue around the steel trinket that now adorned it. Little did I know what nature of beast I'd created. After Kyoto, we went to Brisbane, where he gained a ring for each ear, and then an eyebrow piercing in Amsterdam. He didn't outright say it, but I think he got his nipples done when we got to Barcelona. In New York, he got two more ear piercings, and now, here in LA, just this morning, he'd doubled up the eyebrow ring he already had.

It was as if he _knew_ I liked it, the bastard.

Which is how we ended up here, running as fast as we could from three relentless blue boys, ironically in the employ of the LA Preventer division. Between travel expenses and Heero's new hobby - for lack of a better word - we'd found ourselves a little bit in the hole as far as funds went, so I decided I might as well whip out some of my more desperate tactics and teach Heero about the art of the five-finger discount. Unsurprisingly, Heero latched onto the basics of pick pocketing with flying colours, impressing even me when he managed to filch an expensive wristwatch off some guy's arm on the subway. Trading the watch at a pawnshop found us free of the evidence and three hundred credits richer, which I boasted I could top, easy. And thus started the latest addition on our growing list of daredevil amusements.

Of course, too much of a good thing always makes for a mess. Guess we'd gotten cocky or really sloppy or just had really bad luck. About an hour ago, Heero had lifted an expensive pocket computer, while, at the same time, I scored a jingly set of car keys. We'd been smooth about it, but both people noticed they'd been had a little too quickly and were fast to put two and two together. Well, before we knew it, someone had called up the cops and here we were. Now it was just a matter of finding a good place to ditch their asses. At least they were starting to lag, while Heero and me both had stamina to burn. It was a good thing we had the cover of night and a more than decent head start on our side.

"This way," I hissed as we hopped the fence, dropping down to a concrete expanse on the other side. I led the way a few feet forward, my intentions more than clear as I neared the edge of the pool the chain link fence surrounded. Glad I'd long since replaced the boots with a pair of flip-flops somewhere across Europe, I launched myself into a graceful dive, barely breaking the surface as I went under and settled beneath the water. The swell of bubbles moments later announced Heero's entry into the pool. This particular tactic had gotten me out of a few sticky situations when I was a kid, and the practice had helped me build up a pretty decent meter for holding my breath. Heero was the only guy I knew who could top it.

The erratic swoop of flashlights skimmed the surface of the water above us, signaling the arrival of our pursuers. Fortunately, the pool we were hiding in was a bit out of the way and probably not first on their list of places to look for us. They probably barely gave it a passing glance when they ran by, assuming that we'd just continued down the street. But hey, if anyone had honed running away to a fine art, it sure as hell was me.

I glanced at Heero, who was floating just beside me in a cushion of bubbles. His bleached bangs had a kind of sea foam green tint as they swayed with the ebb of the water and his tee shirt and shorts billowed around his body. I thought he kind of looked like a space cadet underwater like this, hovering indefinitely in a place where the usual rules of gravity didn't apply. The air bubbles swimming around him even sort of reminded me of stars. I pointed upwards to the surface, indicating with a quick flurry of hand signals that I was going to check if we were in the clear yet.

With an acknowledging nod from him, I swam up to the top, careful not to make much of a splash when I came up in case one of the cops had straggled. Keeping my head below the pool's wall, I made my way over to one of the exit ladders, silently peering through the perimeter fence to the darkened street beyond it. In the sputtering glow of the lone streetlight there, I found it blessedly empty. With a triumphant grin, I dove back under to alert Heero that it was safe to come back up.

He broke the surface moments after I did, shaking his head of sopping hair in an effort to rid it of some of the water's weight. In the dim light, I thought the image was particularly ethereal, like he was some kind of mythical sea creature that had come out of hiding. A merperson, my mind supplied helpfully.

"Lucky," I breathed, thinking more about undersea people than our recent close shave. He made an oblivious sound of agreement, and for once, I didn't feel the need to go and talk his ear off about my particular thoughts at the moment. I might have if I figured the most I'd get was an eye roll or even a laugh at my expense, but the embarrassment of admitting that I'd just compared him to such a traditionally beautiful creature far outweighed that risk.

The sound of the water lapping against the pool walls and up against our bodies echoed softly in our ears as we took better stock of our surroundings. The pool seemed to belong to a school or something. A big banner that read 'Home of the Fighting Eagles' in blue and yellow letters hung on the fence near the pool house, where the area's only light tried hard to illuminate everything around it. "Kinda feels like a movie or something, doesn't it?" I commented idly, dipping my head back into the water.

Heero's face looked a little far away for a moment or two, but then again, it might have only seemed that way because I was trying to watch him upside-down. Cast in thick, inky blue shadow, his lips hardly seemed to be moving when he spoke. "What kind of movie?" The reflection of the pool house light on the water threw warbled, yellow shapes across the contours of his face, glinting on the metal rings he wore. His wet shirt melted tightly against his body, proving my suspicions about Barcelona.

I pulled my head up, the chlorinated water gluing my hair beneath my chin and against the back of my neck. "Well, gee, I dunno. A lot of different sorts of stories can start in the same place," I mused, peeling the hair out of my face and slicking it back over my scalp. "I mean, maybe this is a scary slasher flick, where the killer's been waiting to pop out at us when we get out, or maybe it's some kind of fantastical thing, with sprytes and - and... _merpeople_ living in the pool."

"You have a lot of ideas," he surmised.

I was in the process of pulling the rubber band out of my hair so I could redo my ponytail. "What can I say? I like looking at the movie trailers online," I shrugged as I whipped my hair off my neck and into the safe confines of the band. I could still feel the water dripping off the ends and rolling down my back, but it was a sight better than having all that hair stuck to my skin, even if it was a lot shorter than it once was.

He was quiet for a few moments, trying to decide if he wanted to comment or not. "I like movie posters," he eventually said at length. I wasn't sure why he couldn't address me directly when he said that, like there was some reason his admission might make me think less of him.

The silence that followed suggested that his comment probably meant more to him than it ever would to me, but even I knew when to call it quits on a topic. "So," I said, groping for a way to continue the conversation, "what kind of movie do _you_ think this is?"

"I don't like things that are so easily categorized." His answer was a bit more prompt this time, but definitely no less ambiguous.

I thought about that for a little bit and decided I agreed, and I told him so. Idly, I started paddling backwards towards the deep end of the pool, kicking off my flip-flops and letting them float along the top of the water as I moved. I couldn't decide if Heero's comment had been an evasion or a suggestion or what, but I still couldn't help but wonder what sparked it. Heero rarely wasted breath on meaningless things. Which got me thinking about his piercings again.

"Why'd you get so into that, anyway?" I asked, catching him playing with his tongue bar out of the corner of my eye. My shoulders collided with the end of the pool, throwing off my equilibrium. I snatched for the lip of the wall, which, I'm sure, must have been quite the entertaining sight for Heero since he was smirking like a cat as I thrashed my arms around. I narrowed my eyes dangerously at him once I'd managed to grab onto the wall again, but the unwavering expression on his face denoted his awareness of my insincerity.

I might have said he was toying with me when he finally answered, but there was a serious quality to his tone that suggested otherwise. "The same reason I got the tattoo," he said, his smirk becoming a bit more sullen.

"To remember this experimental phase in our lives?" I asked, though there was a certain expression in his eye suggested that wasn't quite the answer he had in mind. I felt like there was something I was missing, not so much in what he'd been saying, but more in what he hadn't.

I detoured from the conversation by hoisting myself out of the pool to sit on the edge, next to the low diving board. My legs were still dangling into the water as I bent forward and clawed off my soaked shirt, which I slopped onto the concrete next to me with a loud, sucking _fwop_. The air was warm, but I still shivered a little bit beneath the translucent film of water that still glossed my skin, suddenly feeling pragmatic for passing off a pair of long, orange swim trunks as casual shorts for the past few days.

Heero was still dallying in the middle of the pool, watching me with those kittenish eyes of his. I think he wanted me to come back into the water with him, but I wanted to dry off a little before we left, so I compromised by crawling out on the diving board and settling down near the tip of it. At first, it was a little disarming feeling the flexible board dipping beneath my weight, but rearranging myself so I was lying on my back quickly fixed that little problem. When I rolled my head back to peer at Heero over the edge in this new position, the whole world turned over, but then again, Heero kind of made me feel like that when I was oriented normally, too. At least I didn't have to worry about the board snapping beneath my fat ass.

Overhead, the sky was hazy with this red gauze that the city's nighttime lights threw up. The only things that were really bright enough to see from there was the L1 colony cluster, which radiated with the same reflected glow as the waxing moon nearby. A few exceptionally brilliant stars twinkled here and there, too, dotting the sky like a dark canopy with holes punched in it. "Seems like another world up there," I sighed, folding my arms behind my head. "Do you think we'll go back any time soon?"

I heard the soft splashing of water as Heero moved a bit closer to the diving board. "Having second thoughts about your deep kick?" he asked, his exact proximity a little hard to tell with the way the low echo of his voice distorted against the pool walls.

"I - no!" I snorted indignantly, scandalized by the mere suggestion. "Are you?"

"I never did," he said with a shrug that disturbed the gently rippling water with another soft splash. "We're here for you." The open-endedness of that statement made me want to reach out and hold him under water until he confessed the whole extent of it to me.

I tried not to think about it as I let out another sigh. "Maybe I should give it up," I lamented, finally voicing the hopelessness that had started to set in somewhere in the Midwest. "We've been all over this damn planet and I still haven't found it. Maybe I'll never find it...." Maybe trying to reinvent the rush I'd felt as a teenager had been too ambitious a goal - or I just was going about this in a completely wrong and backwards way.

"Hey, at least you have a best friend," Heero reminded me, his soft voice probably the most soothing sound in the universe right then. I felt the board bend a little more beneath my body as his hands grasped the edges of it. Effortlessly, he hoisted himself out of the water and supported himself on his folded arms, a pillow for the top of my head. I might have been scared of falling headfirst into the water if he hadn't been there. The sight of his face obscured my view of the sky, but I kind of thought it was an improvement. He was still talking, but I think I was more concerned with catching a glimpse of his tongue piercing than actually listening to what he said. "You said it yourself: most people never get a best friend," he went on. "But here, you've got one who'll follow you to the ends of the earth and back. You know I would, Duo... I am."

I stared up at him, my breath stuck somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I could see so many more stars in Heero's eyes than I ever could trying to see space from a place like this. A stray trickle of water ran down the fat chunk of blond hair that fell over the middle of his face, plopping in the hollow of my left eye, but I barely noticed. Maybe I was looking for answers in all the wrong places - was thinking too grandly. Maybe what I wanted was a small thing, like a mote in someone's eye that still contained the expansiveness of galaxies uncharted.

He was leaning over me now, his face a blur to my unfocused eyes, yet more clear to me than ever before. "What part of the movie is this?" I wondered, not at all expecting my voice to come out sounding so strangled.

One set of fingers ghosted across the shape of my face, sending an indescribable sensation of warmth and cold through my system. His thumb lingered on the soft ridge of my bottom lip, imbuing it with the sterile taste of the chlorinated water. He was humming a little, his tune easily recognizable as that sleepy lullaby-like song he used to sing to himself during the wars. Seemed like he'd gotten more familiar with it as time had gone by - or had just reinvented it for himself. "Not a movie," he interrupted himself to murmur, his hand slipping under my chin to cup it.

Then, before I knew what was happening, I felt the diving board dip a fraction lower as he lowered himself nearer to me, the soft pressure of his wet lips against mine. My mouth opened in surprise, never in a thousand years expecting a development like this, and his mirrored mine. I felt the cool metal of his tongue ornament against my own, and after weeks of watching him play with it, I couldn't resist the urge to do the same. I found myself wondering why kissing Heero didn't feel as strange as it probably should have, or why all the pick pocketing and pursuing cops in the ESUN didn't feel nearly as exhilarating. Or, most importantly, Heero would want to kiss me at all.

His upside down kiss was sloppy and rich with the sweetness of his inexperience. Vaguely, I found myself recalling the tongue piercing incident as he tentatively slid it against mine again, mentally reviewing all the things he'd said. I was suddenly struck with the urge to know if this was the kind of thing Heero had in mind when I'd asked him about kissing and then felt an inexplicable knot of envy for the person he'd been thinking of when the whim first struck him. The idea that maybe Heero had never kissed anyone before this started eating away at me, and, opening my mouth a bit more, I became desperate to make sure Heero never wanted to kiss anyone else ever again. I justified it as my best friend instinct taking over, but the excuse sounded pretty damn lame even at the time.

When we parted, he lingered above me, but didn't say anything. I thought the beautiful darkness in his eyes spoke far more expressively than any words ever could. Moments later, though, his face was gone, replaced with the murky, red sky as he silently glided back into the water, vanishing beneath the soft waves just like a merperson. I stared blankly up at L1 for some indefinite period of time until I heard the telltale splash of Heero breaking the surface of the water a little ways off. I could faintly hear him humming his song, his deep voice reverberating all over the pool and all through my head.

_ "I'll hear your song,  
If you want me to.  
I'll sing along...."_

I rolled over onto my belly, cushioning my chin atop my hands as I watched Heero in the middle of the water, floating absently on his back, his heavenward eyes seeming to stare at everything and yet, nothing at all. Maybe merpeople were like underwater angels, I thought as I watched him drift across the water. Vaguely, I wondered if they could sing. Heero seemed to be managing decently enough, anyway.

Two of my fingers found my lips, which still tasted like chlorine and Heero. I kissed their tips, shuddering as a euphoric burn spread from my mouth and shuddered across my whole body. It was warm, like a shower of falling stars had rained through me. Maybe they were the stars I saw in the dark of Heero's eyes. I glanced back at him, still floating like he was lying on a cloud as he hummed. I wouldn't go as far to say that Heero had some amazing singing voice, but there was this passionate quality to it that made it sound like it belonged to an angel. I thought, maybe if I stayed quiet long enough, the merpeople would come up to the surface to listen. Stupidly, I thought I might have scared them away when I realized I'd absently started to hum the simple tune along with him and quickly shut up.

_ "But it's a chance I'll have to take.  
And it's a chance I'll have to break."_

I closed my eyes in an effort to try and get my thoughts in order, but even then, I kept seeing things. Probably because the splotchy blackness reminded me of the stars and the sky and Heero's eyes. There was a sad, longing emptiness that seemed to have wrapped itself around Heero. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he spoke - when he sang.

The fading of his humming was what jarred me back to reality, suddenly afraid that he was drifting away. Though I was relieved to find that he was still where he was before, I couldn't chase away the feeling that the pool was stretching out wide between us: an unfathomable ocean that could snatch him away at any moment if I wasn't paying attention. He was always there at my side, and I knew it was high time I started being there for him - to be as good a friend to him as he had to me. Pushing up onto me elbows, I tentatively called out his name, hoping my voice didn't drown itself as it reverberated across the pool.

The water lapped around him as he swung back into an upright position, treading water right where it got just an inch too deep for him to stand on his toes. His piercings glistened with a dull, metallic sheen beneath his wet hair. I'd fucked up somehow, I just knew it. There was no other reason he'd be staring at me so expectantly with those eyes, like he died a little more with each wordless moment that passed.

Sad, dead eyes, hopeless they'd never see what they most desired.

"Just like me," I whispered, leaning over the edge of the diving board to try and distinguish my wavy reflection on the water's surface and found, with the bad light and my new haircut, my face was hard to really tell it apart from Heero's.

A ripple broke the image in the water, and I looked up to find Heero had swum back to my end of the pool and was bobbing in front of the diving board again. The stars were still glimmering in his deep blue irises, but seeing them still there was the sort of reassurance I could go for right then. "Hey," I murmured, somehow feeling shy when I met his gaze.

"Hey," he replied, his voice just as hushed as mine. His arms folded, he leaned on the tip of the diving board again, just as he had done when he'd kissed me. My lips tingled at the recurring thought.

I wanted to ask him at least a million questions, but couldn't find the right way to do it. I'd been fucking retarded enough already, and the moment felt so fragile, I was scared to death I was going to crush it with my stupid, clumsy hands. Hands that couldn't create shit, I reminded myself glibly.

The corners of my mouth wobbled up into a nervous smile, unsure of what to say but afraid to let him think his presence was unwanted. "So," I began, gnawing on the inside of my lip, "what were you meditating so hard on over there?" Realizing the question was a pretty stupid one, I fought to redeem myself by adding, "It's just that... well, your eyes seemed so lonely, and I...."

His response interrupted my rambling. "You," he said simply, as if the answer should have been obvious. I guess it was, really, since I'd been thinking about him, too.

Still, I was a little miffed by his response, trying to plot out how feeling like that figured in with our friendship - with that kiss. "You're lonely when you think about me?" I wondered tentatively, fearful of what it might mean.

His damp fingers were in my hair, his forehead pressed against mine, like he was trying to draw me into himself. "Can't you... see?" he implored, his voice faint beneath the sound of the sloshing water around us. "All that matters to me is your love. I'm blind and waiting for you."

"Heero...." My voice was pathetic-sounding - like I'd been sucker-punched in the gut.

"It washes over you and me in colours you can't deny," he went on, the words coming faster now. "I'm drowning in it and I want so badly for you to grab onto me, Duo." He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth like he was trying to seal his emotions inside, but it was no good. "Please," he whispered.

To say I was overwhelmed would probably be the understatement of the century. I never thought Heero's affection for me could run so deep or that he would ache from it so much. I felt like a fool for not figuring it out sooner. "Hey, hey, Heero," I said, reaching up to cover the hand that was in my hair with one of my own. "You know what we share won't break so easily. Don't fall apart on me here, okay?"

"I've been falling apart for so long already," he protested tiredly, like he'd been fighting it for far too long. It pained me to know that it was my fault he felt that way. "I just want to be with you, Duo, even if you don't feel the same things I do. Anywhere you go, just allow me to go there, too."

"Heero," I repeated, moving my hand so I could lift his chin. Heaven seemed to fit the shape of his eyes so perfectly. The stars were falling from his eyes now, rolling silently over the curves of his cheeks. I caught them on the crook of my finger as I brushed it gently over one eyelid. "You're already too much a part of my life for it to be any other way. There's a reason I like you best - why I chose you to be my wingman," I told him, hoping he understood I was okay with it.

The melancholy that cloaked him melted into something more hopeful. Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth impulsively against mine again. The kiss wasn't much this time - hardly more than simple lip-to-lip contact - but it was laden with even more passion than the first. It was like he was trying to convince me of everything he felt, as if his words hadn't been enough to adequately express it.

I was smiling when we parted. "Don't think you have to save your song for when you're alone," I assured him, nuzzling him playfully. "Because as long as we're friends, you're never by yourself. I'd never let you be."

The change in his expression was subtle, but it spoke volumes to me. "I know," he murmured, one corner of his mouth gently curving upwards.

This time, when he sang, I didn't feel wrong when I hummed along with him.

_ "I'm in love with you.  
I'm in love with you.  
So in love  
With you."_

--

**TBC!**

PS

Sorry about the lack of breaks in the last two chapters; sometimes this site edits that stuff out when you upload D:


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:_ Deep Kick_  
Author:** Link Worshiper  
**Pairing:** 1=2  
**Stuff:** language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), lemony, experimental POV stuff  
**Disclaimer:** When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is Luna, by the Pumpkins.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

Just so you all know, this is the chapter that this story is rated M for...

-

I don't know what I should have been thinking when Duo showed up on L1 that day. I wanted to tell myself that his visit had been an impulsive thing that had been born of his sheer desire to see me, but I knew it probably had more to do with that Mariemaia girl. At least, that's what I reasoned. I knew damn well that most of the time, reason didn't play much of a part in Duo's logic. Truth be told, reason didn't mean much to me when it came to Duo, either.

I'd been more on the reclusive side after the first war. Maybe I'd been a little paranoid Relena would try to pursue me and try and get me to settle down her way - whatever that was. She had her peace, and now, I wanted mine. The war had thrust a lot of things upon me and had given me a lot of things to think about now that it wasn't a constant weight on my shoulders. So I hightailed it up to the closest place I had to a home and found a tiny apartment for rent on one of the more blue-collar satellites, figuring that was the sort of place I'd fade away best in. I got a job unloading freighters in the spaceport during the day and spent nights humming myself to sleep as I tried to figure out what I wanted for myself.

The daily work was hard and strenuous, but I loved it. Maybe it was the tedious labour, or the way no one would look at me like they hated me - like they wanted me to die. The freighter berths were always thick with port workers and traveling spacers alike, so no one really paid me any mind as long as I kept doing an efficient job. The atmosphere was refreshing, though, with the constant stream of unfamiliar, curious faces. Still, there were moments where I hoped that maybe Duo would come strolling off one of those freighters. That selfish part of me wished he'd have come to L1 searching for me, while a vainer part whispered that he'd have come after trying hard to locate me there.

At night, sometimes I'd lie in bed with my cock in hand as I whimpered Duo's name into the pillow. It was a secret I'd kept with me since I'd rescued him from Barge, but in the pitch blackness of my closet-like apartment, I felt safe indulging my fantasies about him. There were other times I'd just fold my arms behind my head and stare at the ceiling, while I thought about every little nothing we could own together. I wondered if he'd rather a dog or a cat, or if he'd like to live in space or on earth, in a city or in suburbia. I was embarrassed that I would imagine such silly scenarios concerning him, that I was so foolishly saving my love for him. And yet, I thought that even if years went by with me spending all my evenings alone with my radio, just one kiss from him was worth waiting for.

But it was like all those irrationalities didn't matter when he _did_ find me. He seemed so casual about it too, leaning in my doorway with his black baseball cap twisted backwards on his head and a ragged leather jacket slung over one shoulder. He said something about his Gundam, but I wasn't really adhering to it. The first thing I wanted to know was why.

He blinked at my interruption, his lips rounding in surprise as his face fell a little. I think he thought I was being short with him, that his presence was a total hiccup in my routine. "I asked Quatre," he'd said slowly, pulling at the hair poking out from under his ball cap. "He said you sent Wing to him right away. I asked him if he knew where you'd snuck off to."

"He shouldn't have," I'd answered with a frown. I still kept up with all the others by digital means, but I had been careful not to let any of them become too wary of where I was. I know it seemed a little backwards, but when the war had first ended, I knew I needed the space - even from him, for a little bit. I figured if any of them really needed to see me, it wasn't like they didn't possess the skills to track me down if they were tenacious enough.

Duo's response was a careless shrug. "He didn't," he said. "I had to do most of the legwork myself. And I have to say," he added, indicating me with a poised finger, "chasing you down is one heck of a scavenger hunt, Heero Yuy. Really, sending Wing on such an extensive inter-colony route just to get it to L4 - that was impressive. Almost lost your trail a few times in there, but it was fun!" He grinned, like he was expecting a prize. I had a feeling the prize I most wanted to give him wasn't something he'd have been interested in at the time.

I cleared my throat, my eyes sliding away from his face. "It was easy," I'd said self-consciously. It had been, really. Having access to all those freighting ships and knowing a few of their pilots had made plotting out a roundabout delivery route for Wing simple. I'd sent it at least four times in orbit from colony to colony, making sure it changed hands at almost every stopover before it arrived at its destination. Fortunately, the trade routes were just as laden with contraband as normal cargo, which made the hunt for a pilot who didn't ask a lot of questions about what exactly he was shipping fairly effortless. I have to admit, I hadn't been all that sad to see Wing go.

Duo looked fairly unimpressed at my claim. "You'd make sweating blood easy," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Anyway, how long do I have to stand here before you invite me in for some lemonade and cookies?"

"I don't have either," I'd said automatically before I realized he was just making a figure of speech. "I mean, I'm sorry," I was quick to amend, stepping out of the way so he could come into the apartment. "Please."

He was shaking his head hopelessly as he hung his jacket and hat on one of the hooks by the door as if every day, right next to my favourite denim coat. "Homey pad you got here. I kinda like it," he commented as he followed me to the small kitchen. I didn't dare look back at him, but I knew his head was probably swiveling in every direction as he took in his surroundings.

"It serves its purpose," I answered as I walked over to the stove. Lifting the kettle, I turned back and asked, "Is tea alright?"

"Oh, sure," he consented absently. He was standing by the door with his arms crossed, distracted by the framed newspaper clippings hanging over the vidphone. There weren't that many: just the small flurry of articles that had come out with the media buzz right after we'd foiled White Fang's Operation M and OZ had disbanded. There was a colour photograph from the front page of an international newspaper that portrayed the five of us with Relena at the Sanq knighting ceremony she insisted we all go through; the accompanying article was printed beneath the headline that read 'Soldiers for Peace'. There was a small article to commemorate the day Quatre took over his father's corporation and another announcing the launch of the ESUN's new enforcement organization, the Preventers, among others. I had a few more in my makeshift study, but I didn't intend to show him those; most of them were things that kept track of his whereabouts for the past year or so and would probably leave him asking more questions than I'd been prepared to answer at the time.

We fell into a strange silence after that, the only noise in the room coming from the analog clock ticking on the wall and the slowly mounting hiss of the steam from the kettle as the water became hotter. It whistled just as he was taking a seat in the chair I usually used as a footrest when I was sitting at the table. I poured the boiling water into the two waiting mugs beside the stove and went rummaging for some bread and jam to eat with the tea. I ferried our impromptu snack to the table and sat down in the other chair at the table, hoping the meager offering was sufficient.

The quiet remained for a little bit longer as I watched him saw off a fat hunk of bread from the loaf, which he then proceeded to smother in blueberry jam. I liked the way his hands worked, the strong way he'd hold the loaf in place while he cut it and the confident way he held the bread knife. I couldn't resist the burning question inside of me any longer, and I can only imagine what kind of fool Duo thought I was when I blurted, "Just why are you here?"

He stared at me across the table, the bread poised just in front of his mouth, like he was about to take a bite. "Why shouldn't I be?" he'd countered, his voice soft. "I need tickets to hang out with my best friend now? Sorry, Heero, but that's already Trowa's gimmick."

His tone was serious, but his words made me laugh anyway, and in that moment, I realized why I missed him so much. He gave my life a jumpstart, made it a lively, bearable thing. He was the kind of person who laughed at the rain and made up goofy dances for the songs on the radio just to make me smile. No one else hugged me for the hell of it, or could tell when something had upset me without even having to ask.

Then it dawned on me what he'd actually said. "You think of me as your best friend?" I'd wondered, completely amazed by this pronouncement. I hardly had enough friends to count on two hands; the fact that Duo gave that much of a damn about me was almost unfathomable.

"Well, duh, Heero," he'd said bluntly, as if I'd have to be an idiot not to know. "Spending time with anybody else just isn't the same." He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes as he fed himself the rest of his bread slice. The smear of blueberry jam at the corner of his mouth distracted me from finishing my own, though. "I would know," he was saying. "I hung out with all sorts of folks for a good half a year before I decided enough was enough. Some of them were even kinda neat, but none of them were _you_." He polished off the rest of his bread and reached for the mug of tea that was still cooling on the table, mumbling, "Quatre calling me was one of the best things that's happened me in a while."

"About disposing of your Gundam?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. "I thought you were particularly attached to yours."

He took a sip of tea, set the mug down and shrugged. "We don't need them anymore, and besides, going with 'Scythe to see Quatre was probably the best chance I'd get to figure out where the heck _you_ were, mister." He reached for the bread and the knife, cutting into the flakey crust again. "'Scythe may have been special to me, yeah, but at the end of the day, he's still just a big pile of metal. I'd trade that for you any day, Heero." He was coating his second slice of bread in jam, still unaware of the blue stain of it by his smiling lips.

I set my bread down next to my mug, idly collecting crumbs on the tip of my finger. My eyes flicked up at him, finding him looking at me like he knew there was something I wanted to say. It was almost uncanny how good he was at that. He probably thought I was just being moody, but really, I had no idea what to tell him without feeling foolish.

"You know, you don't have to tell me you missed me if you didn't," he said, almost as if he could read my very thoughts. "It's not like I get that easily offended."

My entire body jerked as i lifted my eyes to meet his straight on. "But I did," I finally admitted, not even realizing what I was saying until the words were well out of my mouth.

"Really?" He perked up, excited like a puppy being offered a bone, but then drooped almost seconds later. "But then why did you run away?"

"Run away? I didn't...." I trailed off, his meaning dawning upon me. "I'm sorry, Duo," I apologized, hanging my head again, certain he was disappointed with me. "I didn't want it to seem like I didn't care. I was just... really confused and I - "

He pinched the crust of bread that still remained from his second slice between his teeth and reached across the tiny table to pat the backs of my hands, which were fisted on either side of my mug. "Don't worry; I get it," he said in a way that assured me he wasn't just trying to make me feel better. "Life comes at'cha fast. You don't always get that chance to think. We all kinda needed the break, I guess."

"Yeah," I sighed, glad he at least seemed to understand.

"So," he said, pulling the crust out of his mouth and holding it aloft as he leaned comfortably on one hand. "What'd you think about?"

Right then, I almost gave into temptation and told him the unadulterated truth of it. I wanted him to know that I thought about him every day and every night and that I just wanted to hold him in my arms forever - that I would belong to him whether he'd have me or not and that all he needed to do was ask, and I would give him my everything. With him around, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest and my lungs fill with air; he gave my life the vitality it had been lacking for so long.

But I didn't confess any of those things. I was too afraid. Instead, I went for a less specific response, hoping it would at least be enough to satisfy his curiosity until I was ready to be more honest with him. "About my life - what I want for myself," I said, trying to be nonchalant.

"Oh." His reaction didn't give away whether or not my answer was enough until he pressed for more information with another question. "Well, what did you decide?"

"Stay with me," I entreated him, a split second rush of all those romantic notions enough to make me speak without thinking. I rushed to explain myself, praying I hadn't painted myself into a corner with my foolhardiness. "So we can reconnect, I mean. It's been so long since we've seen each other and we've never had time to just... enjoy being together," I rambled, hoping I made remote sense.

"Whoa, what's this?" Duo seemed a little overwhelmed by my outburst, but he took it in stride. "And here I was thinking I'd have to ease into that particular topic."

I hoped I didn't sound as pathetically desperate as I felt, but the fear that this visit was just as temporary as our companionship during the war wouldn't leave me alone. "Please say you will."

Something in his expression changed then, like he'd been gifted with some sort of understanding. "So you really _did_ miss me," he murmured more to himself as he gave my hands another reassuring pat. Then, clearing his throat, he added curiously, "Was it really that lonely?"

I met his eyes and found him waiting peaceably for my response, glad he wasn't looking at me with any traces of pity. I didn't want him to feel sorry for me, but I still felt obligated to answer his question. "Unbearably," I said, my voice trembling a little. "Worse even than when I was a brat," I elaborated, unable to stop the words from coming out as they filled my mouth. "Back then, I didn't have anyone to lose."

There was a moment where an empathetic haze misted over his eyes, but he was quick to brighten the heavy mood, as was often his way. "Well, you never have to feel that way again, so you can just turn that frown upside down, 'Ro!" he exclaimed cheerfully. He stood up and stretched even further across the table, placing his thumbs at the corners of my mouth and reversing the crescent shape of my lips. If the colony had chosen that moment to fall apart around me, I wouldn't have noticed, because all I could see was Duo's face. I felt my mouth settle in its new expression of its own accord, even as Duo pulled his hands away. "That's how I like to see my Heero," he said as he sat back down in his own chair.

"This is how I like to feel," I told him, a little well of pleasure settling in my chest at the thought of being _his_ Heero. God, how I wanted to be his - his in every sense of the word.

Still, I was already more comforted than I had in the whole time I'd been on L1 by myself. Suddenly, all the confusion and unrest I'd been experiencing didn't seem as vicious a monster as it had even that very morning. I could have given away everything I owned in that instant and would still have felt like I was made of air so long as I stayed like that. I knew the world was starting to grow restless and volatile again, but then, rebels and war was the furthest thing from my mind. I'd venture to say I hardly even cared about any of it.

"Hey," he said, drawing me out of my reverie. He was standing up, gulping down the last of his cold tea. "It's getting sort of late. I should probably do something about holing up for the night."

I was immediately on my feet, artfully moving around the table so I could grab his wrist. "Don't bother," I insisted, just short of pleading him again. "Stay here."

He blinked strangely at me, like he wasn't sure if he'd heard properly. "You sure that's okay?" he ventured.

"I wouldn't offer if it wasn't," I told him sincerely, gripping his wrist tighter. It wasn't thin by any means, but it was still fairly bony. "You can sleep in the bed."

"Well, if you're sure it's okay," he relented. Only then did I release his wrist, which he immediately started to massage with his other hand, though he was trying hard to do so in as unnoticeable a manner as he could. I guess I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been grabbing onto him.

"You're welcome anytime," I said, hoping to avoid any awkwardness about how miserable I probably seemed. "This way," I directed him with a wave, passing him to lead him towards the bedroom. My apartment wasn't huge, barely more than the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, study and common area, but it was still a lot more affordable than a similar place would have been anywhere worth living on earth. I made sure to enter the bedroom before him on the pretense of turning on the lamp by the bed, but really more intent on hiding the picture of him I'd clipped out of the newspaper a long time ago; it lived in a small frame on the nightstand.

He wasn't really paying much attention to what I was doing, instead more focused on taking in the room he'd be spending the night in. When the lamp came on and bathed the room in a more suitable light, he let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, good, a double," he said, nodding towards the bed. "Means I won't have to kick you out of your own room. I'd feel bad if that was the case."

Luckily, the lamp still wasn't strong enough to make the reddened colour of my cheeks terribly prominent. "It's not a problem," I insisted, nervous about this potential new hurdle. "The armchair in the living room is comfortable enough. I've fallen asleep there many times before."

He got a look on his face like he was staring at a crazy person. "Don't make me force you, Heero," he said, his tone thick with seriousness. "If anyone's sleeping in an armchair, it's me, but I think this bed is plenty big for us both."

I sighed and conceded he was right, not too keen on making the situation any worse. Both of us were barely sixteen and still stuck in the awkwardness of youthful development; he was gangly and thin, while I was just short. "Fine," I told him with a shake of my head. Then I jerked my head back towards the short hall just outside the bedroom door, where he stood. "Bathroom's just to the right. There are towels in the closet there. I don't mind if you shower first."

"Nah, I'm cool," he said with a toss of his hand, finally venturing into the room and settling down on the edge of the bed. He turned to admire the view of the spaceport outside the window over it, anxiously tapping his foot on the carpeted floor. The satellite was starting to shut down its daytime simulation, bathing the outside in a ghostly, orange light.

"What is it?" noticing the quick rhythm of his foot.

He looked a little sheepish when he realized he'd been found out. "Do you have a spare set of PJ pants or something?" He was rubbing the back of his neck, just beneath the thickest part of his braid. "I didn't bring any stuff with me."

"You went colony hopping and didn't bring a single thing with you?" I raised my eyebrows at him, remembering that he hadn't had anything more than his leather jacket in hand when he'd come inside.

"Well, I _did_ have a knapsack when I started out, but I ditched it at Q's," he defended himself. "Didn't want all that dead weight to hold me back when I started out to find you. Figured I could live day to day decently enough for the time being."

I shook my head, now positive that Duo was crazy. I'm not sure how being drawn to that spoke much better in my favour, really. "Feel free to use whatever you'd like," I told him as I started walking towards the door with plans to shower, detouring by the bureau on my way to grab a pair of flannels.

I heard him call out a word of thanks as I left and headed for the bathroom. The moment I'd closed the door behind me, I pressed my back against it and stared up at the ceiling fixture, trying hard to get myself to breathe normally. Not losing my composure around Duo when he'd suggested we share my bed had been one of the hardest struggles of my adolescent life. I wondered how I'd ever make it through the night.

Tossing my flannels onto the toilet, I stripped myself of my clothes and left a trail of them in my wake as I moved towards the bathtub. I pulled the shower curtain closed and leaned over the tub to adjust the water temperature and turn on the showerhead. I climbed in with the intention to purge myself of the stench of the day, but even as I stood there with the bar of soap clutched in one hand, I found myself more concerned with ridding myself of the urges that were conglomerating in the pit of my stomach.

Before I knew it, the soap had slid down towards the drain and I was coiled on the floor of the porcelain tub with my feet up on the sides as I touched myself with needy, starved fingers. I thrust up into the curve of my hand, tears wetting my eyelashes as I fought not to gasp Duo's name each time. At least the hiss of the water did enough to hide my whimpers as my need became more and more acute. I jerked my cock violently in my fist, imagining that it was Duo who was settled between my legs, stroking and petting me to such intense orgasm. Then, with the stain of my desire coating my thighs, I rolled over and curled up beneath the falling shower water to cry, knowing that the closest I'd ever get to Duo was in fantasy.

I finished relatively quickly after that, cleaning myself thoroughly and turning off the shower to step out and dry off. I pulled on my flannels and gathered my dirty laundry to toss into the hamper on my way back to the bedroom. I found him sitting on the bed in a pair of my boxer shorts, running his fingers through his long, unbound hair in a rudimentary effort to comb it. The image very nearly had me running back to the safe confines of the bathroom.

"You okay, man?" he asked as I silently crawled into the space right against the wall. He reached for the lamp to turn it off and slid under the covers, rolling over to face me in the dark. "It's just that, I thought I heard you sobbing a little in the bathroom and I was worried."

"It's nothing," I assured him, clutching my pillow tightly.

"You sure?" he pressed skeptically. "You're not just saying that because you think that Heero Yuy problems aren't worth a thought from anybody else, are you?"

"Yes," I answered, purposely leaving it ambiguous as to which of his statements I was referring to. I guess he knew when to let it lie, because he didn't address it anymore, instead just groping for my hand in the dark so he could give it a steady squeeze. He kept his hand there, even after he'd released the pressure, and before long, the lax droop of his fingers and the rise of his soft snoring signaled he'd fallen asleep. I lay next to him, awake for many hours after that, all the while dreaming he would wake up to make love to me until the small hours of the morning.

-

I should have known he wanted to fuck the second I saw him buy that goddamn ice cream cone. Hell, I should have known it when he started toying with that damned tongue bar of his, making these coy little glances up and down the length of my body like he was trying to decide which piece of clothing to tear off first. If someone had told me that Heero Yuy was a sex maniac when I first met him, I'd have laughed that person's ass to the moon and back. But there it was: Heero Yuy was fucking _addicted_ to, well... _fucking_. Who'd have thought that would've been the thing that got Heero motherfucking Yuy's blood running.

He had the craziest kinks, too. The first time we did it had been in the second stall from the door in the men's bathroom of some Irish pub we'd crashed for the night. Granted, he'd had a little too much to drink, which was how we'd found ourselves practically on top of each other, while he retched a good third of the bar's selection into the toilet, and I guess there'd been a little accidental brushing of this and bumping of that. Before either of us really knew what was going on, he was gripping the top of the metal stall partition with both hands, his head turned towards the shuddering florescent lights above. One of his feet was clamped against the small of my back, the other propped against the toilet, while I thrust up into his tight ass. His loud moans made it no secret to anybody wandering by what we were up to, either. The time after that was in a nearly empty movie house in the middle of a flick, and another time, across a picnic table in the park. Public sex, Heero Yuy: still have trouble adding the two together, despite the very convincing evidence.

But he wasn't limited to just that. Even quiet moments, where no one would ever see us, if the opportunity presented itself, Heero was always more than ready to get busy. Maybe he just liked pleasing me. I'd dabbled around my fair share with sex and stuff, but I got to say, no one sucked cock like Heero, and no one rode it quite like him, nor did anyone spread 'em and beg for it the way he did. No one looked half as good doing those things as he did, either. If he hadn't confessed to me he'd been a virgin before we'd started having sex, I'd have liked to find the guy who taught Heero to be so damn good so I could thank him before breaking his fucking neck for getting to him first.

And goddammit, if no one knew how to turn me on like Heero did. I mean, I'd always thought he was pretty damn fine, and more and more, I was starting to get an inkling he'd liked me for a lot longer than he'd ever admit, but ever since all that went out into the open, he'd been shameless about doing whatever he could to make me pant. I think he sometimes did it just as much for his own amusement, the smug bastard.

Which brought me back to that stupid ice cream cone he'd just picked up and was now licking fervently as we continued down the boulevard. His tongue swirled around the vanilla white globe that crowned the sugar cone, twisting it around with an agonizingly slow rotation of his wrist. I could even see the way his tongue piercing left a shallow rut in its wake as it cut through the soft treat. His eyelids were heavy, but he was watching me with a rather hungry expression in the darks of his eyes.

I decided to play it cool - to give him a taste of his own medicine. "Hey, 'Ro, check that out!" I said, excitedly pointing down the sidewalk at a very large, grand-looking building at the end of the block, while at the same time, I let my other hand ghost across his back, wandering down just far enough to slip my fingers teasingly into the waistband of his shorts before retracting them again. It was brief, but I felt him shudder at the contact. Point for Maxwell.

"Nice hotel," he commented just before widening his mouth a little and going down on the lump of ice cream. His lips were stained milky white as he slid them over it. "Think it's a little more than we can afford, though." Here, he quirked an eyebrow, lapping at the ice cream on his lips with the tip of his tongue. Damn, but he was good!

I was torn between trying to mess with him and rising to the challenge he was clearly laying out before me. A moment of antsy deliberation found me leaning heavily towards the more masculine choice. "Want a bet?" I quipped, crossing my arms and eyeing the five-star hotel as we neared it.

Both his eyebrows shot up this time, and I could tell he was definitely intrigued. "Sounds a little wild, Maxell," he said, making another languid pass at his ice cream.

I knew then that our afternoon had suddenly gotten booked solid. "Not as wild as what'll happen next, Yuy," I jibed right back. Already, we were strolling up the white brick cul-de-sac that led up to the hotel. "Think you can handle it?"

His step became a bit livelier as we walked up to the entrance of the hotel, where a smartly dressed doorman held one of the heavy glass doors open for us, all the while eyeing our so out-but-in clothing. Heero lingered in the lobby, waiting for me to fall into step with him, and then brought his lips close to my ear, whispering, "Think you can handle me?"

I shivered, and it had nothing to do with his cold breath. Not even taking the time to take in the grandeur of the marble-floored lobby, I grabbed Heero's wrist and started walking brusquely towards the elevators, some hair-brained scheme already starting to hatch itself in my head. After living by the seats of our pants for almost two months now, I kind of liked to think I'd developed a talent for stunts like this. Not that it was really even the foremost thing on my mind; I was a little more concerned with Heero's lips, his thighs, and his hips and his ass.

There were a few people waiting for the elevators when we got over there: two of them were wearing matching blue dresses and aprons, each with an armload of fresh bathroom towels; the other guy standing there was some snob from LA proper, who kept eyeing Heero disdainfully. I never thought I'd live to see the day Heero garnered more attention than I did, but I thought that even without the bleached fringe and the piercings, he was already unforgettable. I knew the guy wasn't looking to paw Heero or anything, but I sent him a contemptuous glare anyway, just to make sure he knew what he was messing around with.

The elevator arrived with a pleasant chime and we all piled on. The snob hit the button for the executive suites on the top floor and the maids hit the button for floor six. I hit the button for twelve, and Heero, having finally licked his ice cream down to the cone, started taking bites out of the treat. I think he probably had an idea as to what my game plan was and I trusted him to fall into step pretty easily.

The two maids were young, chatty things, gossiping about some guy named Fernando in rapid Spanish. My Spanish was kind of shaky since most people spoke Standard nowadays, but I knew enough to notice when their subject shifted to us; it seemed they were disputing which one of us was hotter, though when I winked at the pair, both of them were reduced to red faced giggles behind the stacks of towels they carried. It was when Heero decided to let me eat the last of his ice cream cone right out of his hand that really commanded their attention, though. Even the douche in the business suit was staring slack jawed at our display - especially when I took the liberty of licking Heero's sticky hand clean. Then I leaned close to the girl nearest to me and whispered something to her, simultaneously sliding my hand into her pocket in search of her universal card key.

The two maids left the elevator a giddy mess and Heero and I left the elevator smugly and far hornier than we'd been when we'd gotten on. "Left or right?" I asked as we stood in front of the brass sign mounted on the wall that gave directions to the numbered rooms, twiddling the stolen keycard between my fingers.

Heero just shrugged and walked towards the nearest door, which happened to be to the right. I came up beside him and knocked lightly on the door, saying in as calm a voice I could, "Housekeeping?"

Heero sniggered at me and I made a face at him, pressing an ear to the door to listen for a response. Hearing nothing after a few moments, I inserted the key and cracked the door open. I found the room empty, but there was a rollaway suitcase sitting at the foot of the bed, opened to reveal at least a week's worth of women's clothes. That wouldn't do. I pulled the door closed with a frustrated growl, getting uncontrollably impatient. Goddamn, I wanted to fuck just as bad as Heero did by this point and it was driving me nuts.

"What nonsense were you telling those girls, anyway?" Heero wanted to know as I repeated the same charade on a door a little further down the hall.

"Oh, only that you know how to work your tongue even better than I do," I murmured back with a sly grin, just after I'd decided it had been quiet long enough to attempt an entry. I felt an excited tingle between my legs when I found the room in pristine condition, like no one had slept there in days. Still, just to be safe, I gave the place a more thorough search, opening drawers and checking the bathroom in case we'd just happened upon some neatfreak's space.

Just as I came to the conclusion that we'd found a nice, unoccupied room, I felt a pair of strong hands grab my shoulders from behind and spin me around. Before I knew it, Heero had his lips working against mine, teasing my tongue with his as his hands roamed down my back and beneath the waistband of my board shorts. His hands clamped down hard, a stray finger wandering to tease the cleft of my ass as he ground himself as close as he possibly could. I could feel his unbuttoned fly and his hardened member through the cloth of my shorts as we stumbled across the room.

I felt the backs of my knees collide with something hard, almost causing me to trip. Pulling my lip with his teeth as he broke our kiss, he removed his hands from my shorts and grabbed my shoulders again, forcing me downward onto what I quickly realized was a chair. "Let me remind you, then," he growled, standing above me with a hand under my chin to lift my eyes from his heavy, beautiful cock, "just how good you think I am."

I licked my lips, making it no secret how ready I was to make good on that. "I sure hope you put the 'do not disturb' sign on the door," I said, letting my hands wander up his thighs, groping for the split in his pants, where he was just begging to be touched. I wrapped my hand around his cock, loving the way his body arched as I swiped my thumb over its tip and gave it a teasing little pump. "Did you?" I asked as his fingers fell away from my chin and my touching became a little more commanding. I got a hardly coherent whimper as a response.

After a little while of toying with his cock, I let go and wrapped an arm around his waist to pulled him closer. His erection bobbed playfully against my cheek and I laid a gentle little kiss against it as I fumbled with the string holding my shorts up. His hands were lost in my hair, one clawing at my ponytail while the other raked viciously against my scalp. Honestly, I hardly noticed, because I was too preoccupied with getting my own fingers around my dick. It strained up towards Heero like it already knew just what it wanted.

I knew Heero had noticed me fondling myself when I felt his cock twitch against my face eagerly. He pulled his hands out of my hair and fell to his knees, yanking my hand off his prize and violently pushing my legs apart so he could position himself right in front of my chair. A hand pressed right at the crook where my thighs joined my torso, he leaned forward, his open mouth eager to receive its favourite indulgence. The feathery ends of his thick bangs tickled my lower abdomen as he started to swallow my swelling penis bit by bit. The cool nub of his tongue bar slid erotically against my flesh as he dragged it down the length of my shaft and across the slit, eagerly lapping at the precum that had started to pearl itself there. I found whenever Heero was on his knees for me, he indulged in sucking my cock like he was a slave to it. I'd seen him get off to it without even having to touch himself.

"Oh, kitten," I groaned, my voice rumbling deep and raspy in my chest as I felt my orgasm rising higher and higher. My hands were fisted in his hair, and I pulled at it viciously as I came into his waiting mouth. He drank of it greedily, kissing his way down my cock even after I'd finished just to lick up the residue of it. The contact was making me hard again. "Baby, I'm gonna come again if you keep that up," I managed to say through grit teeth.

I felt him smile against my skin at the comment. "What if that's what I want?" he murmured, giving my cock another indulgent lick before standing up and taking a few steps backwards to lean on the nearby desk. He partook in masturbating for me, his rhythmic ministrations causing his already loosened pants to slide further down his hips. I wet my lips as I watched, adoring the way he meld my name into a long, erotic moan with each thrust he made into his waiting hand.

He pushed his pants down around his ankles and hitched himself up onto the desk, the black garment still dangling from one of his feet. Leaning against the wall behind the desk, he splayed his legs apart and let his other hand join the first in his touching, slipping up beneath his shirt to tweak his nipple rings. He caressed his balls with a smirk that boasted he knew that it was something I liked, though the smug expression quickly melted away when he pressed a finger deep inside of himself. He readjusted his position on the desk to allow his fingers easier access, adding a second, and soon after, a third, as he continued to fuck himself with them.

I could barely stand to watch it casually for very long. Soon, I was on my feet, striding over to the desk and moving to stand between his legs, a hand firmly planted on the wall on either side of his head. "You want me to come for you again?" I hissed, already feeling that familiar tightness in my belly again. "I'm gonna fuck you so hard, Heero...."

My voice was reduced to a guttural noise in my throat as he leaned close to my ear and whispered around a needy moan, "You know how I like it, Duo."

By God, did I. Heero often complained that if he wasn't screaming my name while we were doing it, I wasn't fucking him nearly hard enough. I swallowed at the thought of Heero's voice, hoarse with passion and then managed in a shaky whisper, "Got any lube or something?"

"Don't bother," Heero answered just as raggedly, easing his fingers out of himself so he could wrap both arms around my neck. "Just get that big fucking cock of yours inside of me."

I took a moment to be flattered by his word choice as I rushed to unlace my board shorts all the way, dropping them to the floor and guiding the head of my throbbing dick right up to his ass. I spat into one palm and slicked it across my erection anyway, despite Heero's protests to get on with it. We let out a simultaneous groan as I finally pushed my cock into him, slowly at first, but with a gradual increase in tempo as my more primal instincts started to take over.

His back collided against the wall with a thump at every stroke, each thrust rougher than the last. Hips rising to meet me as I pounded into him, his gasping lips shaped my name and his eyes rolled back into his head with the haze of euphoria. He was hanging onto me like I was the only steady thing in the world, his blunt fingernails digging into my back as he begged for me to fill him, to be part of him.

I was practically crawling on top of him while we went at it. I could feel the desk shuddering beneath our heaving bodies and his hard cock rubbing through the fabric of my shirt and up against my belly, wet with the traces of his desire. I could tell he was getting closer to the edge with the way he'd started panting, arching with a bit more finality to his movements. I wasn't in a much better state, the anticipation of waiting to come at any second sending a flurry of butterflies through my stomach.

He climaxed not long after I did, letting out a pleasure-ridden moan as he spilled his seed. I could feel mine coating my own cock, which was still buried deep within him as we clung to each other, waiting for the fog of our orgasms to subside. His arms were still looped around my neck, and he leaned up to lay a lazy kiss on my lips, his own quiet way of thanking me. I indulged the touch, opening my mouth to taste him better.

After he broke the kiss, he leaned his head against the wall, his eyelids half closed over his dark, starry eyes. "You do know that I'm not even close to being satisfied, Maxwell," he murmured, rolling the nubbed end of his tongue bar across his bottom lip.

I chuckled a little and smoothed his blond bangs up over his brown-topped head to lay a kiss on his forehead. "You're never satisfied, kitten," I whispered back before pulling away and drawing my semi-hard cock from his body. "You have a libido of steel - which I guess should be expected." I laughed a little, flopping back down into the chair and trying hard to ignore the way my cock was stirring at the suggestion of more fucking. "Considering that you're you and everything, I mean."

He smirked and inched forward to the edge of the desk, planting his hands between his naked legs as he leaned forward. "What are you trying to imply? That you can't keep up?" he wanted to know, clearly out to tease me. Sex brought out the most devious aspects of Heero's personality. Anyone who tried to say that he was completely thickheaded clearly didn't know him very well.

"Not a chance," I scoffed, running a hand through my hair and meeting his sultry expression with one of my own.

He gave his foot a shake, tossing his pants to the floor as he crossed his arms over his abdomen and grabbed the hem of his shirt, which he then pulled swiftly over his head, giving his hair a tousling shake as he pulled his head through the neck opening. "We might as well take advantage of this posh room while we can," he said casually as he threw his shirt onto his crumpled pants and, now completely nude, slid off the desk, stalking towards me with malicious intent gleaming in his eyes.

One corner of my mouth tweaked itself up higher than the other. "Heh, well, if it wasn't here, it'd be somewhere else," I said drolly, despite the fact I was eyeing him hungrily as he drew nearer. "You're insatiable, Heero Yuy."

Looming in front of me again, he reached forward and pulled my shirt off over my head, carelessly discarding it by his feet. He stood straddling my lap, a hand resting comfortably on either of my shoulders. The proximity of his cock to my lips had me licking them again, the temptation sending an erotic shock down to my groin.

"I can't help it," he murmured, trailing a hand down my chest as he reached for my reawakening erection. His lips were ghosts against my ear as he lovingly took my penis into his palm and closed his caressing fingers around it. "I love having you like this," he purred, expertly jerking my dick to attention with a few rough strokes. "It's everything I dreamed it would be."

With those words, he lowered himself onto my lap, holding my excited cock in place as he settled himself over it and began to take the length of it inside again. The sensation made me just want to heave right up into him again, but I bit my lip and forced myself to allow him to set the pace.

It didn't take him long to completely mount himself, and soon, he'd wound his arms around my neck again and stolen my lips for another long, indulgent kiss as he started to roll his hips gently, slowly building up a steadily increasing rhythm. It was a little less frenzied than our last bout, but no less ardent. That was another thing that made Heero such a beautiful lover: he was more passionate than anyone I'd ever met, and it was achingly clear in moments like these.

I was the one who was clinging on for dear life this time. He really did send the world spinning over my head, like I was plummeting really fast and the only thing that saved it from being a dangerous fall was Heero's presence - a rush like none I'd ever experienced before. All he had left to give me was himself, but I was beginning to realize that it was the only thing I'd ever really wanted, anyway.

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, his lips parted with the burden of his heavy breathing. He was riding me more fervently now, easing up and slamming down on my cock and quivering with pleasure every time it rammed that one spot hidden deep within him. He pressed his cheek against mine, whispering sweet nothings into my ear; he'd tell me he loved me and it made me feel even more fulfilled than his heat enveloping my arousal.

The wooden back of the chair stamped a harsh imprint of itself into my back as I threw myself against it, starting to become overwhelmed with the rise of yet another orgasm. Heero's cock drummed against his stomach, every now and again bumping up against me as he also started to draw nearer to that point. I drew him closer to me, trapping his shoulder beneath the crook of my neck and staring down the length of his back to the place where our bodies were joined just as traces of my release started to leak down the inside of my thigh. I could feel the warm splatter of his come against my stomach and the pleased shudder that overtook him afterwards.

He held my face lovingly as he offered me another soft kiss before clambering off my lap, albeit with a twinge of reluctance. It was like he couldn't stand not having me inside of him - like the idea of us being apart was the most insufferable torture he could possibly endure. I found myself thinking about how he'd so easily given himself to me and how he'd been saving his virgin kisses for me. It was like he'd been waiting his whole life to.

But I had no idea how to ask him about any of that, afraid of what his answer might be if I openly asked him how deep his affection for me ran. He said he loved me and that he loved fucking me, but maybe it was just a momentary kick for him - a passing phase to get off on, just like this entire crazy escapade of ours had been. Though I think what scared me more was how the thought of him did things to me I never dreamed it would - things that maybe I'd entertained only in moments of fanciful curiosity.

The rush of faucet water drew me out of my dissident thoughts, and I looked up to see him standing by the bathroom door with a worried expression on his face. "What's wrong, Duo?" he queried, his concern more important to him than even taking care of the drying stickiness on his body.

For some reason, I found my mind wandering back to that day I'd first showed up on L1 after the first war and his surprise that I'd actually bothered to follow him up there. "Why are you here, Heero?" I asked, echoing the same question he'd asked me in his little kitchenette all those years ago.

The water was still gurgling into the bathroom sink, but he had forgotten it. "Because I'm closer than most to you," he answered, hanging his head so he could hide his eyes from mine behind his long fringe. "What else am I supposed to do?"

I stared across the room at him, bewildered and unsure if his question was rhetorical or not. "You don't have to feel so... obligated," I said lamely. The word brought a dryness to my mouth and a new fear to my head. The semen painting my abdomen suddenly felt really uncomfortable. The sound of the running faucet roared louder in my ears and I got to my feet, trudging past him on my way to the bathroom.

He followed me, standing in the doorway and watching me wet one of the face cloths by the sink under the water. I could see him reflected near the edge of the big mirror that covered the expanse of wall above the granite counter. He stood there silently, just... watching me as I wiped our come off my torso and thighs. His expression remained sad even as I wiped my cock down with the cloth. When he fiddled with his tongue bar, it seemed more like a nervous habit than a seduction.

I tried not to pay attention to that look of his, refusing to let it mean things to me I wasn't sure that it did. I cleaned off the cloth when I was done and almost blindly held it out to him as I fumbled with the tap.

"It's not because of duty that I'm here, Duo," he said, his hands closing around my fingers and lingering on the damp cloth. "I'm your wingman, remember? I'll stand by you."

My hand quavered and relented the cloth, which he withdrew reluctantly. I leaned morosely on the countertop on the heels of my hands, frowning at my tousled hair and my naked body. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to pity fuck me, you know," I said a bit frostily. I knew I didn't mean it even before the words came out and they stung my ears just as much as I'm sure they burned his.

"A pity fuck?" Now Heero was the one who sounded bewildered. He jerked up from cleaning himself with startled eyes. "You think I'd make love to you out of pity?" He stepped closer to me, flinging the cloth aside and not even noticing as it smacked the shower curtain out of the way before slapping the tile wall around the bathtub. "You think that I care for you out of _pity_?" He sounded torn between being hurt and offended. "I'm here because I want to be," he said adamantly, reaching out to force my body around to face him instead of the mirror. "I'm lost without you, so when you left, I followed - even if I knew you probably didn't have any better direction than I did."

His words were heartfelt, but there was one thing that struck me particularly. "You think of it as... making love?" I whispered, a heavy swallow sinking down my throat and landing awkwardly in my stomach. "It's not just some kind of entertainment to you? A game? Just a way to get off - like jumping off buildings and stealing everything we can?"

His hands were on my cheeks again, pulling my face towards his for another one of his precious kisses. "Never with you," he murmured, his eyes still closed even after his lips had left mine.

I stared back at him, amazed how much he still looked the same as he always did, even with the bleached hair and the tattoo and all the piercings. And in that moment, gazing deep into that longing, loving expression, I realized how stupid I was, growing used to seeing that look on his face after all these years and never once realizing it was only for me. "Heero, why -"

"You know why," he cut me off, not wanting to hear any of my protests. He angled himself a bit more towards the mirror, resting a hand on the edge of the counter as he studied our reflection, the cut of our forms and the hardly palpable distance between us. "It's that something you were looking for," he went on, closing his eyes and allowing one of those peaceful smiles of his to overtake his features. "While you were trying to find it, I was trying to catch it." He reeled me in to kiss me again, whispering against my lips, "Tag, Duo."

It was then as clear to me as our image in the mirror what he'd been trying to say - what he'd been singing to me for years and years to my deaf ears. The clarity of my epiphany found me surging forward to wrap him into a fierce hug, unable to bear that separation between us, either. The simple caress of his body against mine made me want him again, but this time, I wanted to do it right - to show him all those things I'd been a little too afraid to express before.

I think he quickly became aware of my rekindled desire - especially when the most tangible evidence of it twitched against his thigh. "Who's insatiable, now?" he asked, taking a few steps back and smirking down at my cock.

I wanted to come back at him with some witty retort, but for some reason, my instinct for such banter was oddly dull. Maybe it was the visual distraction - the way Heero had turned to lean both his palms against the edge of the countertop, offering his naked body to me in a way that emphasized the gorgeous curve of his back and contours of his slender, but powerful frame. The spread wings of the raven tattooed to his back brushed the tips of his shoulder blades, a beautiful testament to his devotion to me.

He let out a needy little moan and arched his back a bit more, making it more than clear what he wanted. "Give me a good American dicking, baby," he commanded, his tone firm but breathless. "Do it hard and rough. I want to come again with your name stuck in my throat."

His words went straight to my cock as I moved to stand behind him, molding my body to his bent shape. "I didn't know such dirty talk was part of 'love making', doll," I said into his ear as I nibbled on it. One of my hands had traveled down his thigh and greedily possessed his cock again, while the other hand reached across his chest to toy with the rings piercing his eternally pert nipples. The stimulation caused Heero to rub wantonly against me, despite the firm way he'd braced himself against the counter. I took a moment to glance down the length of his back at his tight little ass. A desire to punish that ass with a thorough spanking suddenly nagged at me, but I had to admit I was a little unsure about trying. I settled for pawing at it a little, pinching and tentatively slapping one of the cheeks to a rather satisfying shade of pink.

"Don't tease! Give me what I fucking want," he ordered with an even more authoritative edge, despite the way he was quaking with pleasure. He'd gotten me hard again in mere moments, his every whimper and plea making my cock throb and drip with need. Abandoning his ass for my own erection, I started stroking myself as fast as I could; Heero only started swearing like that when he was horny as all hell, though a rather masochistic part of me had to admit it was damn hot when he got so demanding - especially when it was for my cock.

After I'd worked my arousal hard, I made a quick job of stretching him again, loving the way he'd groan and rise up on his toes as I pushed my fingers into him. He tossed his head back and forth, moaning how I was doing him just right and how good the penetration felt. Just watching the way the pleasure contorted his face in the mirror while he rode my fingers was enough to make me want to come right there, knowing right away that I wasn't going to last long when I got my dick in there.

When I removed my fingers and replaced them with my cockhead, he hardly gave me a moment to position it before he'd thrust back, impaling himself on it with the most goddamn erotic noise I'd ever heard. He moaned my name and closed his eyes, leaning even more forward onto his hands as he waited in delicious anticipation for me to continue. I rested my chin on one of his shoulders, just taking a moment to admire our breathless faces and the grace in our coupling.

When I did start moving, I gave it to him at first with a series of quick, shallow thrusts, gradually slowing down to a long, steady rhythm that pushed deep into him with agonizing unhurriedness. The groans issuing from the back of his throat were so beautiful, a secret song only for me that was just as enchanting as the other one he liked to hum. When he gasped his declarations of love to me, they took on new meaning for me.

I felt my orgasm shake my entire body this time, and when I came, I grabbed him fiercely around the waist and held him tightly. He arched back into me when he climaxed, leaning his head back on my shoulder, his breath shuddering against my cheek. Every blissful moment in my life to date paled in comparison to the completion I felt right then. And then, I saw it - my deep kick - reflected right there in the mirror, cradled tenderly in my arms.

"It's not just the sex, is it," I said, though I was pretty sure I'd already figured out the answer.

"Mm," he let out, moving his hand to rest on top of mine. "It's just you - sex with you.... _Loving_ you. I'd have been happy even if I was still lying in my single bed back on L1, so long as I could lay there with you."

I imagined his little bed in his little bedroom and pictured myself tangled up with him around his sheets. I thought about what it'd be like to call that tiny Preventers' apartment home and decided I would - if he wanted me to, anyway. We'd come back together after a rough day and we'd collapse onto his mattress to a chorus of squeaky springs, where we'd fall asleep in each other's arms with his quiet humming lingering on the pillow we'd share.

My hands tightened around his midsection as I bowed my head and buried my nose into his hair. I could smell myself on his damp flesh, an aroma that mingled almost indistinguishably with his usual scent of cloves and nutmeg. "Always knew you were sweet," I murmured against his temple.

After reveling in each other's warmth for a few more perfect moments, we helped each other clean up again, but it was almost not worth the effort, because no sooner had we stumbled out of the bathroom did we fall onto the big bed together, where we proceeded to tumble each other until we were both too tired to move. Then we sunk into the mountain of pillows near the headboard and held each other. This time, it was me who sang Heero to sleep.

My fingers toyed with his blond bangs as I watched him slumber. His mouth was open a little, and there was a tiny patch of drool glistening beneath his cheek. I felt like I'd come to the place where I'd started walking in a giant circle, finding what I'd discovered at the end had been there at the beginning, too. "We don't need to keep moving anymore. Let's go home -together," I told him as I closed my eyes. The weight of sleep weighed down on them as I added, "I feel I've gotten closer to you."

Somewhere, I'd once heard that love and music could save us.

It did.

-

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:_ Deep Kick_  
Author:** Link Worshiper  
**Pairing:** 1=2  
**Stuff:** language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), lemony, experimental POV stuff  
**Disclaimer:** When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is _Luna_, by the Pumpkins. Everyone better know the song at the end of this one.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

--

There was heavy metal coming from Duo's truck, which was parked near a ditch on the other side of the heather. The ripping guitar and pounding drums probably should have disrupted the quiet scene more than they did; I think that was more to do with the fact I was listening much more intently to the sound of Duo's breathing beside me. Above, the sky curved gently with the concave of the colony satellite's shape. It reminded me of another time I'd been lying in a field, feeling content - feeling happy. But that was ages ago, and I wasn't lost anymore.

L1 was my home, and I belonged there, but not because it was where I did most of my growing up. Rather, it was because I considered home wherever Duo was. My apartment was my apartment because he lived there, and my bed was my bed because he slept there.

I turned my head to look at him. Like me, he lay on his back with his Preventers jacket balled up beneath his head like a pillow. They'd grudgingly reissued Duo a new one when we rejoined the L1 division, but he'd accepted it like he was a green recruit receiving his first promotion into the Preventer ranks. That, too, was a while ago, though; the jacket had since become threadbare and stained, in some places, held together by mere stitches, and he'd been wearing it long enough to work his scent so deeply into the material, not even a thousand washing machine cycles could get rid of it.

His hair was just about as long as it used to be again, snaking across the grassy patch between us and over my chest. I played with the end of his hair, using it to brush the stray dandelion seeds that would waft by on the breeze and settle on my stomach every now and then. My own hair also no longer bore the wild blond hue I'd once dyed it. That had actually grown out relatively fast, which was a good thing, since Director Une didn't take to well to my piercings. We had a rather heated discussion over them when I came back to enlist, I recall, and after some negotiation, she agreed to reinstate my former position if I compromised to do away with at least the eyebrow rings I'd sported at the time. At least there was nothing she could really do about my tattoo, and that was the most important thing.

"Hey, Heero," he spoke up at length, still watching the thin scraping of generated clouds drifting overhead. "You remember ten years ago? In Hollywood?"

"Yeah?" I said, turning my eyes heavenwards again. The weather simulation was starting to fade into its nighttime phase, rubbing oranges and reds into the world around us, but it didn't matter. We no longer needed to rush anywhere.

"We did some good - and we did some real bad stuff, didn't we," he went on thoughtfully. The grass rustled with the zippers of his jacket and the clink of his dog tags as he shifted his position.

"I suppose we did," I agreed, my eyes darting back over in his direction again. He had rolled onto his side, cushioning the side of his cheek in the crook of his arm as he gazed at me with that certain smile he saved only for me on his lips. "But it's like that song - you know, the one that says something like, 'It's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do', right?"

His smile transformed into a kind of smirk. "You would say that, wouldn't you," he scoffed good-naturedly. His voice took on that meditative quality again. "But do you think we did it right? That whole thing - was it the best way to go about it?"

"What else would we have done?" I asked, fanning the tail of his braid out and teasing my fingertips with the course ends of it. I rolled my tongue around the bar I still wore through it, thinking for a few moments how miserable I'd have been if we'd never taken that leap together. I'd have never known how to get to this point if we'd stayed the way we were. I wasn't even sure I could explain that to him, either, so instead, I hummed, "I think life is a little bit more than who we are, Duo."

"Heh, yeah, I guess so. No point in trying to pin the bitch down under your thumb," he said with another wry laugh. His braid jerked in my hand as he rolled about to stretch his limbs upward and splay them out all around him like a fallen star that had bedded down beneath the heather. "But then again," he mused, calming his energy again, "you shouldn't let it pin you down, either."

I clutched his braid tighter, like it was a vital lifeline connecting me to shore. "The people who get the most out of life are the ones who ride it like a wave," I surmised, giving his braid a gentle tug. I wanted him closer to me, to reassure me he wasn't going anywhere. "Sometimes the water's crushing and you go under - you feel like you might drown - but that thrill of standing up on it, of finally conquering it... that's what you live for, isn't it?"

He was still chuckling to himself, even as he rolled nearer and planted a hand on either side of my body so he could hold himself above me. "Yeah, I suppose you're right - as usual," he said with a smirk. "Shoulda known you'd have it all figured out already, Yuy."

My eyes darted away from his briefly, momentarily finding the patch of grass next to my head very interesting. "I had... a lot of time to think," I managed to say. "And it was many years before I was given the chance to do anything about it."

I flicked my gaze back at him, relieved to find his eyes wet with understanding. "Why were you waiting for me, Heero?" he finally begged to know, his elbows buckling a little under his weight. "Why would you hang around for a big dope like me?"

Reaching up to encircle his neck with my arms, I pulled him back down to the ground and rolled him into the patch of grass beside me. I stroked his hair out of his eyes and kissed his lips, hoping my actions could express what I only had feeble words for. "It's a calm day at sea without you, Duo," I mumbled between kisses, not caring if he understood what I said. "But the last thing I ever wanted to do was upset your boat."

I think Duo had a lot of things he potentially wanted to respond with, judging by the little moans he was making in the back of his throat, I also think he'd decided that kissing was a better way to tell them, too. I didn't mind. There was no use in analyzing what ifs when all that mattered was what we'd found now, in this moment - on the crest of this wave.

We lay in a loose shape in the dirt, listening to the breeze rustling the heather. Darkness had almost completely veiled us by then, the chirruping of the nighttime insects already starting to fill the air beneath the music still radiating from Duo's pickup. I could see his lips moving in the dark, their wetness catching a fleck of light every now and then. "You really are unforgettable, Heero Yuy," he said, lifting his head so he could lay it upon a corner of my jacket. "In every way."

My reaction was immediate and instinctive, the words coming out of my mouth before I could help it. _"Unforgettable,"_ I sang back softly, my voice a little raspy from the kissing. _"And forever more, that's how you'll stay."_

It took him a few moments to comprehend the song, but I could tell it pleased him by the way his teeth glinted between his grinning lips. It was a stark contrast to the music already in the background, but I don't think either of us really noticed it anymore. Shakily, he tried to return the next line. I could tell he was nervous, so I coaxed him along, wanting to just share it with him.

_"That's why, darling,  
It's incredible,  
That someone so unforgettable  
Thinks that I am  
Unforgettable, too."_

We couldn't get much further than that. He started to laugh, and that made me laugh, too. We rolled onto our backs, the tops of our heads touching as we both stared upwards, panting heavily as the revelry subsided. Finally, the full deepness of night had settled in, the flickering pinpoints of fireflies dotting the murky blue overhead. "They're like hundreds of stars," I observed as more of them started to gather. "Like a tiny galaxy."

"Nah," Duo waved my comment off. "They're just blinking bugs - not nearly as impressive as space." He rolled back onto his side and looked down at me, his eyes glittering brighter than the fireflies in the darkness. "I would know. I was the one who went looking for answers from the great beyond," he declared, bringing his nose down so it was just touching the tip of mine. "I've come to find that I can see them best like this."

I squirmed, but not because I was trying to get away from him. "The answers or the stars?" I asked, swallowing a little. His breath was hot on my face, warming my body despite the cool breeze.

"Both," he clarified softly, leaning down to press a gentle kiss on my mouth, much to my surprise and pleasure. I opened my mouth to him, never able to drink my fill of him. He touched my face with gentle fingertips, continuing to caress it even after we'd parted. "Don't need to close our eyes just to dream we have wings on our feet anymore."

I hummed in agreement, as he settled down in the grassy patch again, reaching for my hand as the night stumbled onwards. Even if we'd been slow to finish and quick to start, after spending so much time writing and rewriting, we'd finally found the perfect ending for our own story. We were going to say what we wanted to say and do whatever we were going to do.

We'd start today.

--

End

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Thanks for reading; I hope you liked it! You can read my other stories on my website, the link to which is in my profile. I will try and have more Forsaken done soon!


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